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STUDIES 



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IN THE 



EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 



BY 



STEPHEN G. BULFINCH, D.D., 



ATJTHOK OF " MANUAL OF THE EVIDENCES.' 




BOSTON: 

WILLIAM V. SPENC-ER, 
203 Washington Street. 

1869. 






< N V«A 



P 



<\V 



Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1869, by 

WILLIAM V. SPENCER 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. 



Stereotyped at the Boston Stereotype Foundry, 
No. 19 Spring Lane. 



TO 

JOHN GOEHAM PALFREY, D.D., LL.D., 

PASTOR, THEOLOGIAN, STATESMAN, HISTORIAN; 
AND, IN ALL POSITIONS, 

FAITHFUL TO FREEDOM AND TO TRUTH, 

GTfjte Volume 
IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED, 

BY 

ONE OF HIS PUPILS. 



PBEFACE 



The brief " Manual of the Evidences of Chris- 
tianity," published in 1866, was intended chiefly as a 
class-book. In preparing it, however, the author 
could not have satisfied himself or others, had he acted 
merely as a compiler. The arguments brought against 
historical Christianity in our age are very different from 
those which were formerly urged ; the attitude of its 
opponents is more respectful, their theories are more 
ingenious, their pleas more specious, than in former 
times. Recent investigation has shown new means 
of defence for the truth, while it compels the candid 
defender to hesitate before using some that were for- 
merly employed. In preparing, therefore, a small 
volume for the use of Academic and Sunday Classes, 
the author felt it his duty to go over the whole ground, 
accepting no conclusion and repeating no argument of 
previous writers without such examination as should 
convince his own mind that no valid objection lay 
against it. 

The preparation of the w Manual," therefore, left 

<v) 



VI PREFACE. 

results which could not be compressed within the in- 
tended volume. During the three years which have 
since passed, the author has devoted the leisure he could 
command to further researches in the same direction. 
With this fresh labor he has combined a revision of 
former studies, and of articles published from time to 
time in the " Christian Examiner " and the w Monthly 
Religious Magazine." He has endeavored to avoid 
repeating what he had said in the "Manual," except 
where this was necessary to clearness of expression. To 
several friends, whose aid has been kindly given to his 
investigations, he returns his grateful acknowledgments. 

It is but just to himself to state, that this work was 
far advanced, and the first two or three chapters of it 
in the printer's hands, before he saw either of the valu- 
able articles, by Dr. James Freeman Clarke, now pub- 
lishing in the "Atlantic Monthly Magazine." 

The present work, though connected with the former, 
may be read independently of it ; nor does it supersede 
the other for the purpose for which that was designed. 
The two, however, may most suitably be used in suc- 
cession ; the w Manual " as giving to the student a 
general view of the subject, and this book as investi- 
gating more fully those portions of it which are, at the 
present time, of most interest and importance. 

S. G. B. 

Cambridge, Mass., May, 1869. 



CONTENTS. 



Chapter 




Paob 




Introduction 


. 1 


I. 


Religions other than Christian 


25 




Mohammedanism. . 


. 26 




Brahminism. . 


30 




Buddhism 


. 33 




Confucius 


36 


II. 


Revelation, Primitive and Jewish. 


. 46 


III. 


Greek and Roman Civilization, .... 


59 


IV. 


Apollonius, the Christ of Philosophy. . 


. 73 


V. 


Moral Evidence of Christianity. . . 


86 




Argument of Schleiermacher 


. 96 


VI. 


Attempts to alter or improve Christianity. 


101 


VII. 


Mormonism 


. 113 


VIII. 


Babism 


129 


IX. 


Miracles. 


. 141 




D. F. Strauss 


. 148 




Theodore Parker 


. 154 




Ernest Renan 


166 


X. 


Authentication of the Records. 


. 175 


XI. 


Manuscripts, Versions, Coins, Monuments. 


187 


XII. 


The First Three Gospels 


. 198 


XIII. 


The Fourth Gospel. 


207 


XIV. 


Baur's View of the Acts 


. 235 


XV. 


Baur's View of the Epistles 


. 245 


XVI. 






XVII. 


The Old Testament Prophecies. 


. 266 



EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 



INTEODUCTOEY. 



The Christian religion has been, for eighteen hun- 
dred years, regarded by its adherents as of supernatural 
origin, — a revelation from God, communicated by 
peculiar inspiration, and attested by miracles. Those 
who denied to it this character have seldom professed to 
be its followers or its friends. At present the case is 
different. Christianity, as a supernatural revelation, is 
the object of attack, — frequent, bold, and ably con- 
ducted, — on the part of persons who claim the Chris- 
tian name, and exercise the office of Christian ministers. 

About forty years ago, controversy in New England 
had scarcely ever touched the authority of revelation. 
The community at large entertained no doubt of the 
divine mission and the miraculous credentials of Jesus 
Christ, however they might be divided respecting his 
rank in the universe, or the influence of his death. The 
theological student might indeed meet such doubt ; it 
came before him in the regular course of his studies ; he 
1 (l) 



2 EVIDENCES OP CHRISTIANITY. 

looked over, with little interest, a few of the old Eng- 
lish Deists, and with more attention examined the argu- 
ments of Hume ; but the standard replies removed his 
fears lest the foundations of his faith should be unsound ; 
and so the subject was dismissed, and the mind turned 
willingly to themes that were occupying public atten- 
tion. Very different is the state of opinion and feeling 
now. The topics that were then chiefly discussed ex- 
cite but little interest ; not because they are unimportant 
in themselves, but because the arguments on both sides 
have been so often and so fully presented. The doubts 
of the present day relate to the authority of Christianity 
itself. 

To many, however, these doubts appear of small im- 
portance. Religion, they say, has its true place in the 
heart, not in the understanding. Those among us who 
deny the especial divine mission of Jesus Christ yet own 
him to be the best of teachers, and ascribe to him an 
inspiration, superior in degree, though similar in kind, 
to that which has been shared by all great minds, — by 
Moses and Socrates, by Homer and Shakspeare. Truth 
cannot be more true because it comes from the lips of 
Jesus ; and if we receive the truth with love and obedi- 
ence, it will matter little whether we admit all the claims 
that are made for him who brings it. By such argu- 
ments as these, many who reverence the Savior are 
deluded into thinking that there is really no important 
difference between belief in him and rejection of his 
claims. They do not consider that there may be truths 
which are not self-evident, but revealed from heaven by 
an authoritative messenger, and that the veracity and the 
whole moral character of the Savior are implicated in 






INTRODUCTORY. 3 

the correctness of his assertions respecting his own com- 
mission. 

We would be far from denying the moral excellence 
of many who reject supernatural Christianity. None 
can doubt their sincerity and their courage. They often 
exhibit in their conduct the influence of the religion 
whose holy lessons they learned in childhood. But the 
dangerous influence of the opinions they hold, though 
thus neutralized in them, will show itself, we fear, in 
another generation, educated in a Christianity which has 
been deprived of its authority. Already we find, as 
might be expected, among those who hold these views, 
an indifference to public worship and disuse of Christian 
ordinances. It is intimated too, that, however great 
the benefits conferred on the world by Jesus, the honor 
now paid to him interferes with the freedom of the mind 
and the progress of truth ; and that it were well that 
his name, like the names of other great teachers of the 
past, should cease to be prominently brought forward. 
But in our own view it is the person of Christ, the 
manifestation of divine holiness and love in his charac- 
ter, and especially the exhibition of them in his death, 
which has, more than aught else, subjected to his reli- 
gion the hearts of mankind. A cold system of philoso- 
phy can never move the world. To do this, requires an 
object that can engage our affections. Such an object — 
a Mediator, an image of the Father's moral perfection — 
is more than ever necessary to us now, under the ten- 
dency of modern science to substitute the conception of 
the laws of nature for the idea of a personal God. We 
will not enlarge, however, on the serious consequences 
to public morals which may be anticipated from the prev- 



4 EVIDENCES OP CHRISTIANITY. 

alence of the opinions to which we refer. If those 
opinions are true, our fears are vain : let the truth pre- 
vail, and it will vindicate itself. We object not to the 
zeal with which such views are advanced by those w T ho 
sincerely believe them ; but we who regard them as un- 
true cannot but consider them as also morally dangerous. 
If God has indeed given us a revelation, it must have 
been because a revelation was needed ; and the treasure 
which we thus possess we feel bound to defend, by 
whatever arguments we can fairly employ, and thus to 
do our part for its transmission unimpaired to those 
who shall come after us. 

To understand the present state of the controversy 
with regard to the claims of Christianity, it is necessary 
to look into the history of the past. For this purpose 
we must first extend a glance beyond the Atlantic. 

The country which, for a century past, has taken the 
lead in philosophical and theological speculation is Ger- 
many. Her learned men, patient and laborious, ex- 
amine deeply whatever subject engages thejr attention. 
The peculiar constitution of the country has produced a 
singular combination of freedom in opinion with restraint 
in regard to form. Germany is so tolerant of new 
opinions that it has little occasion to be tolerant of new 
sects. A man born a Lutheran remains a Lutheran, 
in regard to the outward forms of the Church. But 
so long as he observes these forms, or at least sets up 
no other in opposition to them, he may believe, preach, 
and write what he pleases, from the highest Calvinism 
to the lowest Naturalism. As the whole country is 
divided into numerous states, each governed by its own 
prince, if a scholar of eminence is out of favor at one 



INTRODUCTORY. . 5 

court or university, he may very probably find employ- 
ment and honor at another. Hence arises a great 
variety of opinions, together with the utmost boldness 
in expressing them. 

The sceptical spirit with regard to the authority of 
Christianity, which had manifested itself in the English 
Deists and the French Encyclopedists, made its first 
marked impression in Germany through the writings of 
Hermann Samuel Reimarus, Professor of Philosophy in 
Hamburg. In 1754, three years after the commence- 
ment of the "Encyclopedic" in France, Reimarus pub- 
lished a work on "The Principal Truths of Natural 
Religion." This was followed by the remarkable Es- 
says, known as the "Wolfenbiittel Fragments." They 
were written by Reimarus, and circulated in manuscript 
among his friends ; but coming into the hands of the 
famous Lessing, at that time Librarian at Wolfenbiittel, 
he gave them to the world as " Fragments of an Anony- 
mous Writer" (Fragmente eines Ungenannten), pre- 
tending that he had found them in the library under 
his charge. The theory of these Fragments was, that 
the plan of Jesus was political in its nature, and was 
defeated by the Jewish authorities ; that his disciples 
invented the story of his resurrection, and modified his 
system as circumstances required. The publication of 
these Fragments, commenced in 1773, created a strong 
sensation. Among the theologians of Germany who 
rallied in defence of their religion, two classes soon 
became marked. The majority adhered to all which 
they had been accustomed to receive and teach. Others, 
however, believed that, in order to defend the essential 
truth of religion, it was necessary to distinguish it, by 



6 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

a careful and independent criticism, from all which 
was justly liable to the attacks of the new infidelity. 
Hence came the movement to w T hich the name of Ra- 
tionalism is most distinctly given. It was an attempt 
to apply the principles of reason to the interpretation of 
Scripture, — a worthy purpose, for true reason and a 
true revelation can never contradict each other. If, in 
the prosecution of that purpose, many were led to aban- 
don important truth, this result should not render us in- 
sensible to the aid which biblical criticism has derived 
from the labors of those eminent theologians by whom 
it was undertaken. 

Prominent among these were Semler, Michaelis, and 
Eichhorn. By the last, especially., the attempt was made 
to explain the Old Testament and some portions of the 
New on the principle of .mythical interpretation. This 
is nothing else than the idea, to some extent correct, 
that the narratives which we meet are to be understood, 
not as literally true, but as expressing what was believed 
at the time when they were written. A myth, or 
mythic story, is a narrative, either conveying truth in the 
form of fable, or, more usually, conveying some portion 
of original truth adorned and magnified by the additions 
it has received from the successive persons who have re- 
lated it, one to another, until it reached the historian 
who committed it to writing. The earliest part of the 
Bible, especially, was thought to possess this character. 
The story of Adam and Eve, in their temptation, fall, 
and expulsion from the Garden of Eden, was explained, 
not unnaturally, to be a mythic or figurative account of 
the process by which man — whether it be the individual 
or the race — loses the happiness of innocence. The 



INTRODUCTORY. 7 

account of the building of the Tower of Babel, and the 
consequent dispersion of mankind, was regarded as a myth 
of a different description, the narrative of a real event, 
but magnified and adorned with supernatural incidents, 
from the imagination of successive relaters of the story. 

This mythic system of interpretation was by many 
writers used in a reverent spirit, and without a denial 
of the especial divine commission and miraculous works 
of the Savior. The sceptical tendency, however, which 
was first indicated and encouraged by the writings of 
Reimarus, continued to develop itself, and employed 
against Christianity a method of criticism w T hich was but 
a bolder application of that which had been used in its 
explanation and defence. The disposition to undervalue, 
and ultimately to reject the miracles, derived strength 
also from the rise of a system of philosophy which sought 
for the evidence of truth only within the soul. 

This system, the Transcendental, introduced by Im- 
manuel Kant, presents a subject too vast for more than 
a superficial view. We can best describe it to the gen- 
eral reader by saying that it teaches us to look to the 
instincts of our nature. Bacon and Locke had taught 
the world to seek truth by looking around ; Kant and 
his followers sought it by looking within. The disciples 
of the former busied themselves in collecting evidence, 
comparing known facts, and reasoning out truth from 
these ; the latter watched the utterance of the individual 
consciousness., and deduced thence their philosophy. In- 
nate ideas, intuitive knowledge, these were the basis of 
the new system. Kant compared his method to that 
of Copernicus, who, dissatisfied with the attempts of 
his predecessors to explain the motions of the heaver Jy 



8 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

bodies, sought instead to understand his own, and, in 
learning that he moved round the sun, found the key to 
the explanation of all other motion. Thus from the 
study of the human mind itself did Kant derive the 
knowledge of the universe. A beautiful instance of this 
is found in his second great work, the " Investigation of 
the Practical Reason " (Kritik der praktischen Vernunft) , 
where, from man's consciousness of a moral law, he 
proves first the freedom of the will ; then the existence 
of a moral world, a perfection unattainable in time, and 
therefore implying and proving eternal life ; and lastly, 
the existence of the perfect Ruler of this perfect world, the 
Moral Governor and God of all. Kant's own character 
was pure and noble, his life of eighty years was rich in 
works of benevolence, and his death marked by fortitude 
and submission. "I do not fear death," he said, "for I 
know how to die. I assure you that if I knew this 
night was to be my last, I would raise my hands and 
say, f God be praised !' The case w r ould be far differ- 
ent if I had ever caused the misery of any of his crea- 
tures." 

The system introduced by this great philosopher drew 
attention to a class of truths which had not received suf- 
ficient regard from previous modern writers. We re- 
cognize something noble, true, and divine in the thought 
that the seemingly spontaneous utterance of man's heart 
is from the source of all truth, — that every human 
being is in some degree inspired. Yet we cannot but 
perceive that this conception, if taken too unrestrict- 
edly, is capable of leading to false and dangerous in- 
ferences. It is a possible thing to mistake the dictate 
of passion which ought to be restrained, for that pure 



INTRODUCTORY. 9 

impulse which ought to be obeyed ; and he who makes 
it his rule to "act up to his nature," and look within him 
for his only guide, may find himself obeying that evil 
" law of his members " which wars against the w law of 
his spirit." But the tendency of the Transcendental phi- 
losophy with which we have now chiefly to do is that 
which relates to a miraculous revelation. Many, indeed, 
who hold that philosophy are believers, not only in his- 
torical Christianity, but in what is called its Orthodox 
form; but with many others the influence of this sys- 
tem has produced a different result. To such it has 
suggested thoughts like these : If truth be innate in the 
soul, what need is there of a revelation to communicate 
it? If truth be discernible at first sight, what need of 
miracles to prove it ? It was the obvious tendency of 
Transcendentalism to disparage and treat as unimportant 
all outward evidence. Many of the writers of that 
school did not so much deny the truth of the Christian 
miracles as their value for purposes of proof, declaring 
that the intrinsic beauty and excellence of the religion 
were proof enough for them, and that miracles could 
add nothing to the strength of their belief. 

The great thoughts of Kant became the inspiration 
for a host of writers. The poet Schiller compared him 
to a single rich man feeding numerous beggars ; to a 
king whose buildings give employment to an army of 
laborers. Yet among the successors of Kant were 
men whose ability and whose fame appear second only 
to his. Such were Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel, in 
the last of whom philosophy seemed to many to 
reach its greatest height of sublimity, to others its 
lowest depth of absurdity. The views of Hegel tended 



10 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

towards Pantheism, which confuses the Divine Being 
with the universe which he created. According to this 
writer, the Divine Being is everywhere present in na- 
ture, but comes to consciousness of himself only in man. 
To us this statement seems incompatible with the infinity 
of God, and even with his personal existence as dis- 
tinct from his works. Many of the disciples of this 
philosopher, however, understood it differently. Some 
of them were zealous defenders of the orthodox system, 
and in the idea of God's coming to self-consciousness in 
man they recognized the Church doctrine of the Divine 
Incarnation in Christ. Hegel himself regarded his sys- 
tem as reconciling philosophy with the Christian reli- 
gion and its established institutions ; and one of his 
later public addresses was a eulogy on the principles of 
the Lutheran Church, as embodied in the Augsburg 
Confession. Very different was the course of Schopen- 
hauer, another disciple of Kant, whose philosophic wan- 
derings found their close in the dreary regions of Athe- 
ism and Pessimism. 

Contemporaneous with Hegel was the celebrated and 
excellent Schleiermacher, who was born in 1768, and 
died in 1834. In 1799 he published his "Discourses on 
Religion, addressed to the Cultivated among its Con- 
temners." With this work commenced a better day for 
the religious life of Germany. Schleiermacher recog- 
nizes, as essential to a true religious philosophy, a per- 
sonal experience of the need and value of religion. 
The soul then realizes a consciousness of its own im- 
mortal nature, and of its dependence upon God. Ther 
from the same Christian consciousness are developed 
the great doctrines of the Christian faith, the soul com- 



INTRODUCTORY. 11 

ing into vital union with the Savior, who, while one 
with God, is at the same time the ideal of humanity. 
Thus by the path of the Transcendental Philosophy does 
this great teacher arrive at the same reverent and loving 
recognition of the Son of God which thousands of ob- 
scure disciples have obtained by the simpler testimony 
of the written word. 

While we must view with respect the learning, ability, 
and piety of Schleiermacher, we discern even in him the 
tendency of his philosophical system to weaken the re- 
gard of its disciples for the outward, and especially for 
the supernatural, evidence of the gospel. Schleier- 
macher, indeed, did not reject the miraculous. He ad- 
mitted the necessity of one miracle, in the introduction 
of a new element of purity and power into the world in 
the person of Jesus Christ, the first of the human race 
to whom was granted a full consciousness of the Divine 
presence. The great change thus effected he considered 
as nothing less than a new creation. He admitted, too, 
that the miraculous element cannot be removed from the 
Gospels without throwing doubt on the whole connec- 
tion of their accounts. But from his ground, miracles 
appear, not as proofs of Christianity, but as incum- 
brances to it. He, and many German theologians, yielded 
to the tendency to undervalue outward proof, because 
they possessed a substitute which they regarded as more 
valuable. It is unjust, therefore, to denounce Transcen- 
dentalism indiscriminately as the denial of Christianity ; 
it is enough to say that it depreciates that species of 
evidence on which in preceding ages its defenders had 
chiefly been accustomed to rest its claims. 

The Transcendental system, however, as modified by 



12 EVIDENCES OP CHRISTIANITY. 

Hegel, involved consequences, not admitted indeed by 
that philosopher, but which, in the fearless logic of 
Feuerbach, appeared not only as the denial of Chris- 
tianity, but as avowed Atheism. Others, as Bruno 
Bauer, denouncing even Feuerbach as inconsistent, 
found in the depth of Atheism a lower deep. To use 
the words of an author, himself widely removed from 
belief in supernatural Christianity, " These writers made 
it their express employment to daub with abuse, to 
stamp as by-words, to banish from the actual world as 
spectres, not religion alone, no ! all ideal powers, what- 
ever names they might bear, all moral ordinances of the 
State as of society, all love and inspiration, which 
raises itself above the miserable first person singular." 
(Schwarz, "Zur Geschichte der neuesten Theologie," 
page 228.) 

While writers of this class, to follow the expression 
of the author just quoted, were placing the gravestone 
of a great philosophic movement in Berlin, where Kant 
had made its commencement, and while the more moder- 
ate school of Schleiermacher still reverenced Christian- 
ity on the evidence of their own hearts, not denying its 
miraculous character, but not depending upon it, there 
were others who entirely rejected the supernatural ele- 
ment, yet continued to bear the Christian name. There 
were strong inducements to prevent them from laying it 
aside. 

They derived their support from the Christian institu- 
tions of their country, holding places of emolument as 
pastors and professors of Divinity. And apart from 
any such personal interest, they might from higher mo- 
tives seek some middle way between the old belief which 



INTRODUCTORY. 13 

they had abandoned and an attitude of hostility to that 
religion which they saw was the main support of private 
morals and public order. The problem, then, to be 
worked out was, how to reconcile a rejection of all that 
is miraculous in Christianity with the retention of the 
Christian name. 

Various were the methods adopted to achieve this dif- 
ficult undertaking. Dr. Paulus, in his "Commentary 
on the New Testament," and his "Life of Jesus," the 
latter work published in 1828, attempted to explain 
every miracle in such a manner as at once to preserve 
the veracity of the Gospels, and do away with every- 
thing supernatural. Thus, in Matthew xvii. 27, he 
represents that Peter was directed to catch a fish and sell 
it, as the means of procuring the needed money. Other 
writers brought to the common cause the suggestion that 
Jesus had some coadjutors, unknown to the apostles and 
evangelists, and by whose aid he performed these appar- 
tnt miracles. Others more prudently attempted no ex- 
planation, contenting themselves with preaching on the 
moral lessons of the gospel, and passing over in silence, 
or treating as allegory whatever they did not recognize 
as fact. At length the mythic theory was brought to 
its perfection through the labors chiefly of Dr. David 
Frederick Strauss. 

As the views of this writer have been discussed in 
our "Manual," and will again come before us in the fol- 
lowing pages, we will not enlarge upon them here, ex- 
cept to notice the very curious examination, in the con- 
cluding sections of Strauss's "Life of Jesus," of the 
problem recently spoken of, how a clergyman is to 
reconcile the rejection of the miraculous with the reten- 



14 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

tion of the Christian name. It is there pointed out that 
the gospel story, however false in itself, has a true mean- 
in of. If it be not true that God was incarnate in the 
man Jesus, it is true that the Infinite enters into, and 
manifests itself in the finite. The true Christ, the true 
Son of God, is not a single man, but all mankind. 
w Humanity is the union of the two natures, — it is the 
child of the visible Mother and the invisible Father, Na- 
ture and Spirit; it is the worker of miracles, in so far 
as in the course of human history the spirit more com- 
pletely subjugates nature," and so on. (" Life of Jesus," 
§ 151.) "It is an evidence of an uncultivated mind to 
denounce as a hypocrite a theologian who preaches, for 
example, on the resurrection of Christ, since, though he 
may not believe in the reality of that event as a single 
sensible fact, he may, nevertheless, hold to be true the 
representation of the process of spiritual life, which the 
resurrection of Christ affords." (§ 152.) Strauss, 
indeed, answers in part this sophistry, which, with all 
his errors, he was too manly to take as his own guide ; 
but his production of it, and the lengthened account he 
gives of the devices by which an unbeliever may recon- 
cile it to his conscience to retain. his place as a Christian 
minister, with his cautious avoidance of a decision on 
the subject, sufficiently indicate that the instances were 
neither few nor obscure in which such unworthy conduct 
had been pursued. 

Since the production of his first great work, the M Life 
of Jesus," the views of Dr. Strauss became modified to 
some extent by those of another eminent scholar, who 
had formerly been Strauss's instructor, Dr. Ferdinand 
Christian Baur, Professor at Tubingen, — views which 



INTRODUCTORY. 15 

have been ably supported not only by him, but by many 
younger writers, who with himself are known as "The 
Tubingen School." It is the boast of this school to ap- 
ply to scriptural criticism not the facts alone, but the 
philosophy, of history. To those who differ from them, 
they appear sometimes rather to reconstruct history from 
imagination. The theory of the Tiibingen school may 
be characterized as that of "Tendency." The books of 
the New Testament were mostly written, they conceive, 
not by simple-minded men, keeping in view their pro- 
fessed object, but by authors who had each his especial 
purpose to serve, his tendency, to the promotion of which 
he consciously or unconsciously made his narrative to 
conform. None can deny to Dr. Baur the praise of vast 
learning and great acuteness ; but his reasoning some- 
times reminds the reader of a pyramid standing on its 
point. The foundation bears no fair proportion to the 
structure built upon it. Long and circumstantial nar- 
ratives of the sacred writers are discredited, on account 
of inferences acutely drawn from a few texts. Thus 
the statement, given in Galatians ii. 11, of a difference 
between Peter and Paul in a single instance, is made the 
chief proof of a total disagreement between those two 
apostles ; and on such ground the Book of Acts is pro- 
nounced to be, not authentic history, but a falsified ac- 
count, which owed its origin to a " reconciling tendency." 
Two texts in the Apocalypse establish the conclusion 
that its writer was bitterly opposed to the teaching of 
Paul ; and Dr. Baur, reversing the decision of antiqui- 
ty, considers the Apocalypse as having a higher claim 
to be recognized as the work of John than the Gospel 
which bears his name. The inference is readily drawn 



16 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

that the original apostles — Peter, John, and their com- 
panions — believed as their Master had taught them ; 
and the religion, as they received it from him, and com- 
municated it to others, was a mere form of Judaism, 
not a system for all mankind. It was Paul, we are told, 
who, deriving his commission, not from Jesus nor his 
earlier followers, but from his own fervid genius, whose 
inspiration he took for the voice of Heaven, received 
this imperfect and narrow system, freed it from its Jew- 
ish restrictions, and made it a religion such as all na- 
tions could receive. But having no acquaintance with 
the real Jesus, who was simply a Jewish teacher of mo- 
rality, he substituted for him a fiction of his own, a di- 
vine being whose chief object in coming into the. world 
was to die as a sacrifice for its sins. Thus, according 
to Dr. Baur, grew Christianity. Strange that he should 
have continued to rank himself among its teachers ! 

Among recent European writers who have followed in 
the path of Rationalism, we have occasion only to men- 
tion Eenan and Schenkel. While agreeing with their 
predecessors in utterly discrediting the miraculous ele- 
ment in Christianity, these writers exhibit a decided re- 
action in their warmer appreciation of the character of 
the Savior, and in their recognition of the delineation 
of that character in the fourth Gospel. Renan was dis- 
posed to regard that Gospel as written by John. Schen- 
kel, while assenting to the teaching of Baur, of its later 
origin and unhistorical character, still maintains, with 
singular inconsistency, that its author, an unknown wri- 
ter of the second century, entered more fully into the 
spirit of Jesus than the disciples who had sat at his feet, 
and communicated to the world what they had heard 



INTRODUCTORY. 17 

from him. These modifications of the former destruc- 
tive criticism are significant. 

It must not be supposed that the assailants of super- 
natural Christianity in Germany have been left in undis- 
puted possession of the field. The ancient faith of the 
Church has been illustrated by such names as Tholuck, 
Neander, Ewald, Dorner, Tischendorf, with many less 
celebrated ; and the balance of opinion at present is said 
to incline in favor of the recognition of the Christian 
Scriptures as authentic, and of Jesus Christ as the di- 
vinely commissioned Savior of mankind. 

The Transcendental Philosophy first attracted public 
attention in this country about 1830. The rich treasures 
of German literature had then become better known 
than before, and were in this neighborhood received with 
the more interest from the enthusiasm excited by the 
personal character and romantic history of Dr. Pollen, 
an exile from Germany for his liberal opinions on po- 
litical subjects, and the freedom with which he had ex- 
pressed them. This excellent man, as gentle as he was 
brave, after some professional study with Dr. Channing, 
entered the ministry, and soon became a highly accept- 
able preacher, though in a language which he had but 
recently learned. His participation in the anti-slavery 
effort impaired his popularity ; yet he was about to enter 
on the duties of a village pastor, when God took him to 
himself. Dr. Follen was a reverent believer in Chris- 
tianity, as divinely given and miraculously attested. 

In 1836, the publication here of Carlyle's "Sartor 
Resartus " presented the quaint but interesting picture 
of a German student, of great learning, but far re- 
2 



18 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

moved from the habits of common life, first losing him- 
self in a wilderness of universal doubt, then restored to 
peace and self-content by fixing his mental eye upon the 
light within. In 1838, Mr. R. W. Emerson, who had, 
some years before, resigned his pastoral charge on con- 
scientious grounds, delivered the annual discourse before 
the Cambridge Divinity School. It contained expres- 
sion to which Professor Henry Ware, Jr., of that insti- 
tution, felt it his duty to reply, in a sermon on K The 
Personality of the Diety." The controversy was con- 
tinued by the Rev. George Ripley, of Boston, in support 
of the Transcendental opinions, and by Professor An- 
drews Norton in defence of the traditional faith of the 
Christian Church. The new doctrines attracted the be- 
lief, and awoke the enthusiasm of a wide circle of the 
young and ardent, while the novelty of the views pre- 
sented, and the strangeness of the expressions employed, 
moved the surprised community sometimes to grave dis- 
pleasure, and oftener to mirth. Even those who shared 
the excitement of that time now look back upon it with 
a smile at the memory of its extravagances ; yet that 
excitement had its advantages, and expressed its portion 
of truth. It deserved respect, as does every serious 
movement of thoughtful minds ; and it contributed to 
ripen, and prepare for their present usefulness, some of 
those to whom our community now looks as its ablest 
and safest guides. 

In May, 1841, Theodore Parker, then minister of the 
Church at West Roxbury, preached his celebrated ser- 
mon on " The Transient and Permanent in Christianity ," 
which brought distinctly before the public the question of 



INTRODUCTORY. 19 

the supernatural and authoritative claims of our religion. 
In following years, the deserved fame of Mr. Parker as 
a scholar and reformer, won for his views in theology a 
currency to which in themselves, in our opinion, they 
have little claim. Among writers now living, we will 
speak only of the honored pastor of the First Unitarian 
Church in Philadelphia. The views of Dr. Furness do 
not imply a rejection of miracles, but a theory respect- 
ing them which owns their reality as facts, and insists 
strongly oh the holiness of the Great Teacher who 
wrought them, and in some sense on his authority. The 
theory of Dr. Furness, in all its details, will probably 
be accepted by few ; but the richness of thought and 
feeling with which it is developed will make for his works 
a permanent place among the literary treasures of Lib- 
eral Christianity. 

More recently than Transcendentalism, another sys- 
tem has arisen, whose point of view is directly opposite. 
" The Positive Philosophy " appears to be the culmina- 
tion of a method of thought, to which the researches of 
modern science had for years been habituating those who 
engaged in them. Those researches had established 
more and more the idea of an irreversible order in 
nature, the supremacy of law, and the infrequency of 
exceptions to it. Those phenomena which former ages 
had ascribed to the immediate action of the Deity — the 
thunder, the earthquake, the comet — were shown to be 
the results of causes no more divine than the rest of na- 
ture, and subject to laws as definite and as unchanging 
as any that are recognized in the most ordinary events. 
A soulless ball of fire had taken the place of Apollo's 



20 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

chariot,* and the magician who could rule the storm 
was superseded by the almanac-maker. Hence came a 
disposition to disown all that could not be seen, weighed, 
and measured, — all, at least, that did not affect the 
electrometer ; and this disposition, while exerting in 
thousands its materializing, unspiritual influence, rose 
in some to the pretensions of a philosophical system. 
While Transcendentalism looks to the phenomena of 
consciousness alone as the source of knowledge, the 
Positivism of Auguste Comte looks to all observed phe- 
nomena except those of consciousness. It regards as 
the only proper objects of science those which are cog- 
nizable by the senses. The system as presented by 
Comte was Atheism ; for he recognized no God distinct 
from the generalization of man. Some, however, who 
are called Positivists, claim to stand on Christian ground, 
and, expand the system of Comte, to its great improve- 
ment, but to the loss of its distinguishing characteristics. 
It would seem to need no proof that a Transcenden- 
talism which disowns the Positive, and a Positivism 
which disowns the Transcendental and the spiritual, 
must be alike partial and deficient. And yet we find 
advocates of either system, not only rejecting that view 
which is the complement of their own, but deriving from 
their aversion to this an objection to the religion of the 
gospel. The Transcendentalist cannot appreciate favor- 

* " Wo jetzt nur, wie unsre Weisen sagen, 
Seelenlos ein Feuerball sich dreht, 
Lenkte damals seinen goldnen Wagen 
Helios in stiller Majestat." 

Schiller, "Die Goiter Griechenlands" 



INTRODUCTORY. 21 

ably the external evidence for Christianity. To him 
miracles cannot prove, nor testimony support, a system 
which, to his mind, must stand or fall on its own merits. 
On the other hand, the Positivist disowns as unscientific 
all teaching that declares the regular order of nature to 
have suffered interruption ; nor do his habits of thought 
aid him to appreciate ideas connected with such unsub- 
stantial things as faith and holiness and heaven. Would 
that the advocates of both systems would judge more 
fairly. Each might look at the evidence most congenial 
to his own mode of thought ; the material philosopher 
might recognize the positive evidence of outward facts, 
and the testimony of martyrs and historians ; and the 
more spiritual, if he felt that such proof was to him 
unimportant, might still be willing to accept it as true, 
connected as it is with a system which harmonizes with 
his innate sense of truth, and responds to his highest 
aspirations. That Christianity derives its proof alike 
from the visible and the invisible worlds, should com- 
mend it to both schools- of philosophy, instead of draw- 
ing upon it the opposition of either. 

In order, indeed, to command our full assent, the 
proof of our religion must be thus complex. The evi- 
dence of miracle is insufficient, unless it be given in be- 
half of a system which in its own aspect is worthy of 
God ; and though this testimony of its intrinsic worth 
is the most valuable, yet to a large class of minds the 
evidence of miracle is also necessary to confirm it as a 
revelation from above. 

Thus have we traced the scepticism with regard to the 
claims of Christianity which has of late appeared among 



22 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

us, to its origin in the speculations of two foreign schools 
of philosophy, the Transcendental and the Positive, 
which, opposed to each other in all else, have alike led 
many of their followers not only to the rejection of 
Christianity, but to the denial of all religion, and the 
subversion of the principles of morality. The view we 
have taken exhibits to us alike the presumption of the 
human intellect and its weakness. Philosophers have 
tried to measure the Infinite, and have thought to de- 
throne the Almighty ; and yet their minds have been too 
narrow to take in the just claims of the system which 
supplies the deficiencies of their own. 

The view we have taken reveals to us this fact, impor- 
tant in its bearing on the argument before us, that the 
denial of the historical and supernatural claims of Chris- 
tianity, though among us it may be expressed in meas- 
ured and reverent language, and by those who have a title 
to our respect for their learning, sincerity, and moral 
worth, is not only historically connected with the Deism 
of former days in France and England, but with sys- 
tems of philosophy — the Hegelian and the Comtean 
— which are partial, bewildering, and presumptuous. 
These systems have, with many of their followers, re- 
sulted in the denial of God's existence and of man's 
immortality, unsettling thus the foundations of all vir- 
tue ; while the more frequent conclusion of the Hegelian 
speculations has been a cloudy Pantheism, in which 
God, though his being was recognized, no longer 
appears as a Person, capable of loving, to whom the 
human heart can aspire in love, and human need can 
address itself in prayer with the hope of a benignant 
answer. 



INTRODUCTORY. 23 

Let then those who feel inclined to enter the paths of 
modern Anti-supernaturalism, know to what they tend. 
It is right to examine fairly, but it is also right to ex- 
amine with our eyes open ; and so great is the attraction 
to many minds, of speculations that are presented in the 
proud names of learning, science, and free inquiry, that 
we claim no undue advantage for the truth we would 
defend, when we remind those who would examine its 
evidences, that the great foreign writers who invite them 
to deny the divfne mission of the Savior, have rejected 
also the doctrines of a conscious individual existence in 
a future state, and of the being of a personal God. 

We have reason to trust that the wretched sophistry 
by which, according to the representation of Strauss, 
some German clergymen attempt to satisfy their con- 
sciences in preaching a religion in which they do not 
believe, would find few in this country to practise or to 
defend it. We think that our young theologians are 
less apt to disguise their own doubts, than to fall into 
the opposite and nobler error, of making themselves 
appear more unbelieving than they really are. JS T o one, 
indeed, ought to be unjust to himself, nor to fill with 
needless disquiet the minds of a worshipping assembly. 
But the churches of our land are Christian churches ; 
and every one who aspires to lead their devotions is un- 
derstood to be a Christian in his belief. Every honor- 
able man, before he seeks the office of a pulpit instruc- 
tor, will satisfy himself of his right to bear that name, 
not in some comprehensive meaning ingeniously adapted 
to it, but in the sense it possesses in the common usage 
of mankind. As every patriot soldier in our late war, 



24 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

even before he took the oath, had recognized by his en- 
listment his allegiance to his country, so they who would 
bear office in the Christian host, take, by an obvious im- 
plication which no ingenuity can set aside, the vow of 
allegiance to its Crucified Leader. 



RELIGIONS OTHER THAN CHRISTIAN. 25 



CHAPTER I. 

Religions other than Christian. 

The Christian Religion claims to be a revelation from 
God, especially communicated, and miraculously authen- 
ticated. In order to judge fairly of the probable valid- 
ity of this claim, an inquiry is needful into the systems 
held by nations which are not Christian. If we find 
that those systems stand on a level with that of the Gos- 
pel, in the elevation of their idea of God, and the purity 
and power of their moral influence, we shall naturally 
infer, either that all are alike divine, or that all are alike 
human. But if we find in all other systems signs of 
human imperfection, defective ideas of the Supreme 
Being, and incomplete views of man's duty, while the 
religion of the Bible alone presents to us a perfect rule 
of faith and practice, the difference in the systems will 
render probable their different origin. It will be evident 
that those which are thus defective are " of the earth, 
earthy," while we shall not wonder that the Christian 
regards the Founder of his religion as the w Lord from 
heaven." 

Again, if we find in the various religions of unchris- 
tianized mankind > traces of a purer faith from which they 
originated, — if, while their own history has been one of 
uniform deterioration, evincing a tendency in the human 
mind towards idolatry and general corruption, they all 
present indications of a period when the human race 



26 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

believed in one Almighty God, — we shall naturally in- 
quire, Whence came that purer faith of the days of old? 
The observed tendency of mankind to Polytheism for- 
bids the supposition that men in primitive ages sought 
out for themselves the sublime truth, from which their 
successors, whether cultivated or savage, have ever since 
departed. We shall be led then to the conjecture of a 
primitive revelation. And if we find the fact of such a 
revelation taught in the ancient records of that one sys- 
tem which we have already discovered to be alone true, 
complete, and worthy of a divine origin, we shall derive 
hence at once a confirmation of its claims, and an ex- 
planation of the source whence that portion of truth was 
derived, which we find blended with the errors of hea- 
thenism. 

Mohammedanism. 

In this examination of religions other than Christian, 
we take first that of Mohammed. Except the Jewish 
system, the Mohammedan is the most nearly connected 
with the Christian. It resembles it in the acknowledg- 
ment of One, Supreme, Eternal God, the Ruler of the 
world, and the Judge of human actions. But this grand 
truth cannot entitle Mohammedanism to stand in competi- 
tion with the religion of the Bible, for from that religion it 
was derived. The Arabian prophet knew something of 
Christianity, though in a corrupted form. He knew 
much more of Judaism ; and it was from that religion 
that the noblest features of his system were borrowed. 

Accustomed as Christians have been to regard Moham- 
med as an impostor, it is but lately that justice has been 
done, either to the man or the doctrine which he taught. 



RELIGIONS OTHER THAN CHRISTIAN. 27 

The religion of the Koran should be regarded in contrast, 
not to the Christianity of our age, nor even to that of 
the seventh century, but to the gross idolatry which ex- 
isted in Arabia when Mohammed arose. Some tribes 
worshipped the sun, moon, and stars ; one, near the Per- 
sian Gulf, had adopted the fire-worship of the neighboring 
nation ; the goddesses Allat, Menat, and Al-Uzza, were 
adored, — the last under the form of a tree. All, how- 
ever, united in a superstitious reverence for the Caaba, or 
holy house of Mecca, which seems to have been not so 
much a place for prayer to be offered, as itself the object 
of fetichistic worship. Fgr this medley of religions, Mo- 
hammed substituted the belief in one God, the Almighty 
Sovereign of the Universe. Excited by the opposition he 
encountered, he represented it as the chief duty of those 
who would serve this Divine Monarch, to destroy, by force 
of arms, all forms of idolatry. These, and their followers, 
were represented as hateful in the sight of God, while 
the "true believers" were his favored servants. The 
prophet, and his successors, whether bearing the title of 
Caliph or Sultan, were delegates of the Most High, and 
commissioned, therefore, by Him to rule with absolute 
power. 

From this blending of truth with error, arose the 
strength and the weakness of Islamism. For a century it 
was irresistible in its course of conquest. The Moham- 
medan warrior went forth in the name of God, to do 
God's work, and under the lead of God's w Commander of 
the Faithful." But with the cessation of conquest the 
animating spirit of the system lost much of its strength, 
while its darker features, bigotry, pride, injustice, des- 
potism, sensuality, became more and more prominent. 



28 EVIDENCES OP CHRISTIANITY. 

The manly subjection of the soldier to his chief, and the 
religious obedience of the believer to his spiritual head, 
gave place to the relation of slave to despot ; no aristoc- 
racy of birth, no limitation of constitutional law, filled 
up the dreary interval between the cottage and the throne, 
or gave protection to the subject against the oppression 
of sultan or pasha. On the other hand, where countries 
or provinces had been conquered, no wise conciliation 
aimed at the blending of the different races into one. 
Conversion was the only condition of freedom ; the 
Christian or Hindoo subject was but a conquered and 
enslaved enemy. The weakening of the central author- 
ity and the oppression of the people followed with equal 
certainty. A striking example of this is given in the 
history of Servia. The Janissaries of that province 
had been banished, and their property confiscated by 
Sultan Selim III., on account of their tyrannical and re- 
bellious conduct. They leagued themselves with Paswan 
Oglou, the rebel Pasha of Widin, attacked Servia, and 
were repulsed by its energetic governor, with a force 
levied from among its Turkish and Christian inhabitants. 
But Moslem pride and bigotry were alarmed ; the Mufti 
declared that it was against the law to drive the faithful 
from their possessions in favor of the Eayahs. So the 
Sultan made peace with the rebel Paswan, and readmit- 
ted the Janissaries into Servia. When afterwards they 
murdered the faithful governor, and again oppressed the 
people, the sovereign had nothing to employ against 
them but empty threats, which excited them to new 
atrocities, and thus led to the revolution which wrested 
the province from the Turkish power.* Similar causes 
* See Ranked " Servia," Chap. VI. 



RELIGIONS OTHER THAN CHRISTIAN. 29 

led to similar results, in the Greek Revolution, and re- 
cently in the insurrection in Crete. Oppression, lust, 
and faithlessness have given provocation, and thus 
hastened the fall of a power that merited its fate. Nor 
were these crimes incidental merely ; they resulted natu- 
rally from the principles of bigotry, pride, and despotism 
which are identified with the institutions of the Moham- 
medan religion. 

While that religion has been thus marked by crime in 
its relation to the subject, it has appeared in colors as 
dark in the imperial family. It has been known for 
centuries that the policy of the Turkish court was to put 
to death any whose birth might render them rivals 
to the reigning sovereign. This is referred to by Shake- 
speare, in whose time an atrocious instance of this im- 
perial fratricide had taken place.* It may be thought 
that this was the custom of a darker age ; but shortly 
after the accession of Mahmoud II., in 1808, in order to 
secure his throne, the infant son of Mustafa IV. was 
put to death, and four women of the seraglio also, lest 
they should give birth to children of royal descent. 
Such are some of the atrocities of Mohammedanism. 

* " Brothers, you mix your sadness with some fear : 
This is the English, not the Turkish court ; 
Not Amurath an Amurath succeeds, 
But Harry Harry." . 

Henry IV., Second Part, Act V. Sc. II. 



80 evidences of christianity. 

Brahminism. 

In comparing Christianity with the religion of Hin- 
dostan, we need not repeat the details which have been 
so often presented, of the cruelties and impurities of 
Indian idolatry. It is sufficient to refer to such prac- 
tices as the exposure of the dying and the hastening 
of their death on the banks or in the waters of the 
Ganges ; the burning of widows on the funeral pile of 
their husbands ; and the condition of those who, shrink- 
ing from such a fate, drag out a miserable existence of 
constant mourning and penance ; this too, when mar- 
riage and widowhood may have commenced when they 
were yet but children. But it may be replied when 
these, and the still darker atrocities of impure idolatry, 
are named, that they are but corruptions introduced into 
a religion which was originally pure Monotheism. A 
few words then are needed on this subject. 

It appears from the researches of competent scholars, 
that Monotheism was the early religion of India. If 
this was originally held in its pure form, it became at 
length corrupted into Pantheism. The object of reverence 
was Brahma (the expanded, the vast). This word in 
its neuter form, Brahma, or Brahm, denotes the imper- 
sonal essence from which all nature is self-evolved ; 
"not an object of worship, but merely of devout con- 
templation." "As milk changes to curd, and water to 
ice, so is Brahma variously transformed and diversified, 
without aid of tools or exterior means of any sort." Of 
this being, the human soul " is a portion, as a spark in 
the fire. The relation is not as that of master and ser- 



RELIGIONS OTHER THAN CHRISTIAN. 31 

vant, ruler and ruled, but as that of whole and part." * 
But the mind could not be satisfied with this dreamy 
system. The same word therefore, in its masculine 
form, Brahma, denotes a deity who is personal and 
active, but limited in his sphere to the one work of cre- 
ating. Again, as men felt the need of a protector as 
well as a creator, this character was borne by Vishnu, 
the Preserver. But they saw that, notwithstanding his 
power, evil, decay, and death existed ; and to account 
for these, they recognized a third deity in Siva, the De- 
stroyer. These were the Indian Trimurti, or Trinity; 
and from these, in their various manifestations and 
descendants, the countless gods of Hindoo idolatry have 
proceeded. We find then that as soon as Brahminism 
took a single step beyond the great idea of God, which 
it seems to have received from the original revelation, 
that step was error, and led to more and more of error 
and corruption. The ancient sacred books of the Hin- 
doos have been much commended, and placed by some 
in favorable comparison with the sacred books of Chris- 
tianity. But as Oriental scholars have more fully ascer- 
tained the real character of these books, it appears that 
they are mostly composed of prayers, addressed, not to 
the One God, but to the firmament, fire, the earth, the 
air, the sun and moon, and to spirits. Their mythology 
personifies the objects of nature ; and while they may 
teach in some passages that these deities are all resolv- 
able into three, — fire, the air, and the sun, — or even 
into one, yet the worship of the elements, "the creature, 

* Passages from the £rahma-sutras> translated by Mr, Cole- 
brooke. 



32 EVIDENCES OP CHRISTIANITY. 

rather than the Creator," is the general doctrine of the 
much-praised Vedas. 

While therefore the great error of Mohammedanism 
was in its recognizing God exclusively as sovereign, 
that of Brahminism, in its purest form, appears to have 
been the very opposite. The Hindoo did not own 
Brahma as sovereign at all, but conceived of him either 
as synonymous with nature, or as the impersonal source 
from which nature proceeds, neither controlling its forces 
nor interested in its well-being. 

Another peculiarity of the Hindoo religion is in the 
system of caste, and particularly in the high claims of 
its priestly class. The Brahmins, the hereditary spiritual 
aristocracy of Hindostan, were anciently the exclusive 
possessors of knowledge, inviolable in person and prop- 
erty, and supposed to be possessed of power, by their 
curse, to inflict pain even on the gods. The Sudra, the 
member of the lowest caste, was the mere human animal. 
If he presumed to read the Vedas, he was punishable 
with death. The superior classes had a higher nature 
than his. They were "twice born." But beyond even 
the Kshatriya and the Vaisya, the Brahmin was exalted. 
He must keep himself and his race pure. It was to be 
his ambition to rise into identity with God — absorption 
back into the impersonal Brahma. 

If we find here a resemblance to the Christian doc- 
trine of regeneration, we remember that in Christianity 
it is not the accident of descent which makes one man 
to differ from another ; but that it recognizes in the 
humblest the image of God, and offers to him its second 
birth, not as the privilege of a proud caste, but as the 
gift of God's Spirit to the lowly minded. 



religions other than christian. 33 

Buddhism. 

The history of Buddhism in its early period appears to 
have been briefly the following. As we have already 
seen, Brahminism was originally a modification of 
Monotheism, teaching that the One God exists in perfect 
repose, and that the universe is a succession of emana- 
tions from him. This doctrine became corrupted, first 
by the introduction of the Trimurti, Vishnu and Siva 
being associated with Brahma, and afterwards by innu- 
merable steps of degradation. The care of this religion 
was committed to a race of priests, the Brahmins. Side 
by side with these, — like the prophets, and afterwards 
the Rabbins of Israel, besides the priests of the race of 
Aaron, — was a succession of sages ; men whose com- 
mission to instruct the people was not from family 
descent, but from the light within them. Buddhism 
was the protest of these men against the increasing 
corruption. It aimed to vindicate at once the honor of 
God and of man. In opposition to the growing idolatry, 
it proclaimed one supreme and all-embracing Intelli- 
gence ; such is the meaning of the word Boodh. In 
opposition to the exclusive pretensions of the Brahmins, 
it declared that all intelligences, of men and even of 
animals, were parts of that boundless Mind. Such were 
the doctrines, — sublime truth blended with error, which 
Gautama, or Sakya-muni, a devotee of princely rank, 
and the most eminent of these sages, taught in the 
groves of Benares, perhaps a thousand years before the 
Christian era. 

The greatest error of this ancient sage was evidently 
in retaining the Brahminical conception of God as an 
3 



34 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

inactive and indeed impersonal being, a divine sub- 
stance, the thinking Mind of the world rather than its 
animating Soul, and liable to be confounded with the 
world itself. From this error arose, as we have seen, 
the idolatry of Brahminism ; from the same cause there 
came, in the system founded by Sakya-muni, first Pan- 
theism, then Atheism, and then, to fill the dreary void 
of a godless universe, the deification of the heavenly 
bodies, of animals, and of human beings, but above all, 
of the founder of the religion himself. The infinite 
Intelligence was forgotten ; a Being alike inactive and 
inconceivable could not be the object of worship ; but 
the rule of the world was consigned to a succession of 
limited intelligences, and Gautama was acknowledged 
as the Boodh to reign for five thousand years. At the 
end of that time he is to surrender his office to some 
other deified mortal, and to attain nirvana, absorption 
into the infinite. Meantime, while governing the uni- 
verse, he has his representative on earth ; for his spirit 
inhabits the bodies of a succession of pontiffs, who, under 
the name of Dalai Lama (Ocean-like Priest), exercise 
at once, like the Pope, a wide-spread spiritual control, 
and a limited temporal sovereignty. The resemblance 
extends to other features of Romish Christianity, — to 
the celibacy of the priesthood, the monastic life, and the 
mendicant order. In one absurdity, Buddhism stands 
alone. The worshipper in its temples need not repeat a 
prayer. All that is required is, to turn a wheel or drum 
on which the prayer is written, which is thus brought to 
the notice of the Deity. 

In comparing Christianity with this system, we have 
to admit that our religion also has become 'corrupted. 



RELIGIONS OTHER THAN CHRISTIAN. 35 

But the difference is perceivable in this ; that in Bud- 
dhism, as in Brahminism, we can point to a fundamental 
error in the system itself. Christianity, like Buddhism, 
teaches of one God, who is everywhere ; but it teaches 
also that he is our Creator and our Father. It tells us 
that man is made in God's image, and is God's child; 
but it does not tell us that the finite can ascend to share 
the throne of the Infinite. 

With regard to the position of their founders, and the 
apparent causes of their success, there is a wide differ- 
ence between Buddhism and Christianity. Sakya-muni 
was a philosopher, neither claiming supernatural inspi- 
ration nor miraculous power, — whatever legends may 
have gathered around him in the lapse of near three 
thousand years. His personal character had little to do 
with his system, except to commend it by the attraction, 
alike of his honest purpose and of his mistaken asceticism. 
That he left his wife and children, to give himself to 
retirement and meditation, may have given him sanctity 
in the estimation of his countrymen, but in the light of 
Christianity it appears as an abandonment of duty. The 
spread of his system is easily accounted for/ It was a 
reform, undertaken by one who united the influence of 
princely station, of reputed wisdom and holiness, and 
probably of eloquence. The chief doctrine he proclaimed 
was a form of Monotheism, which the popular religion 
had forgotten, but did not deny. The institution of 
caste he undermined, rather than controverted. In some 
Buddhist countries it still exists, though in an enfeebled 
state. Buddhism thus made extensive progress in India 
before the persecution arose, which drove it from the 
country, and rendered its followers an army of mission- 



36 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

aries, well prepared to subject to its sway the regions of 
south-eastern Asia, where probably, at that remote 
period, there was no well-developed system, either of 
civilization or religion, to rival its claims and oppose its 
progress. What a contrast was this to the fierce attacks 
which Christianity sustained from the moment of its 
birth ! Its Founder, not born, like Sakya-muni, in a 
royal station, gathered his adherents among the poor, 
and gave his life as the penalty for teaching the truth. 
His followers had to encounter the opposition, first of 
their own national rulers, and then of the far mightier 
Roman empire. The doctrine they proclaimed was not 
an attempt to bring again into notice principles recog- 
nized by the popular religion. It was the very reverse 
of the prevalent idolatry, and encumbered by the fact 
that its author had been crucified, — "to the Jews a 
stumbling-block, and to the Greeks foolishness." On 
the other hand it claimed, — what Buddhism in its 
early years did not claim, — to be a miraculous revela- 
tion. It did not, like Buddhism, give way before per- 
secution ; but held its ground and achieved its triumph 
where it had first been promulgated. Its prevalence, 
under such circumstances, and in the face of such oppo- 
sition, is a strong proof of the validity of its title to a 
divine origin. 

Confucius. 

About five centuries before Christ, and not far from 
the same interval after Sakya-muni, — though some 
consider them as nearly contemporaneous, — appeared 
the philosophic legislator of China. Confucius (Koong- 
foo-tse) was of high descent by both parents, his father 



RELIGIONS OTHER THAN CHRISTIAN. 37 

having been a distinguished officer of the government. 
This circumstance probably directed his attention to 
statesmanship, and made the duty of the subject the 
central point in his system of morals. Like Sakya- 
muni, he sacrificed domestic duty to ambition, disguised 
as the desire of usefulness ; for after his wife had borne 
him a son, he divorced her, in order to give himself 
entirely to study. His life was spent in an interchange 
of official station and compelled retirement ; sometimes 
the minister of princes, and applying his theories to 
advance the happiness of the people ; at other times 
obliged to give way to the envy and malignity of his 
rivals ; perhaps also to their superior practical ability, 
for the man of theoretic genius is not alwavs the man of 
business. But whether in power or in retirement, he 
had around him a band of attached disciples ; and 
after his death, his memory was honored, and his teach- 
ing became the acknowledged code of morals of the 
empire. 

Confucius can hardly be said to have taught a religion. 
Some have questioned whether he recognized a God. 
He did however acknowledge a First Cause, or Reason 
of things, "eternal, infinite, indescribable, indestructible, 
without limits, omnipotent and omnipresent." The 
central point of influence of this Cause he supposed to 
be in the blue firmament (Tien) , and declared it to be 
the supreme duty of the prince, in the name of his sub- 
jects, to present offerings to Tien, particularly for obtain- 
ing a favorable seed-time' and an abundant harvest. 
Besides this, he ordained the worship of ancestors; the 
spirits of the good being permitted to visit such places 
as their descendants might set apart for such memorial 



38 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

rites. To these devotional services was added in after 
times the worship of the philosopher himself, to whose 
memory a temple is erected in every city, while his 
numerous descendants are said to be the only hereditary 
nobility of China. 

The worship of ancestors was in harmony with the 
ethical system of Confucius, the great idea of which was 
morality founded on filial reverence. The relation of 
children to a father illustrates that of subjects to their 
emperor. A paternal despotism is thus the ideal gov- 
ernment of Confucius. The duties of mankind appear 
to be comprised in what with children we should call 
good behavior. Not attaining to the Christian rule of 
the regulation of the heart, Confucius gave precepts, 
often excellent, often trifling, for the regulation of the 
life. In a word, his system seems the introduction, as 
a law for mankind, of the morals and the politics of an 
orderly school-room. In this light, we may readily 
understand how he attained to the negative form of the 
w Golden Rule : " K Do nothing to others which you 
would not be willing that they should do to you." This 
is the rule of good behavior, the rule of justice. It has 
been given by other Gentile moralists, and appears in 
the Talmud as a precept of Rabbi Hillel. But Christ 
gave the law in its positive form : " Whatsoever ye would 
that men should do to you, do ye even so to them." 
This is the law, not of justice merely, but of all-embrac- 
ing benevolence. 

The account we have given of the system of Confucius 
may explain the hold it took and retained upon the 
regard of the Chinese nation. It was .adapted to their 
form of government. It gained the favor of princes, 



RELIGIONS OTHER THAN CHRISTIAN. 39 

even of the best among them ; for while it sustained 
their power, it taught them to exercise it as fathers of 
their people. It endeared itself to the people by the 
sanction it gave to family order, and family affection 
among the living, and to that tender feeling which bids 
us commemorate the dead. But it was hostile to free- 
dom, fatal to independence of thought and action. Its 
tendency was to a rigid formalism in outward conduct, 
with little to call forth the powers of the mind, or to 
purify and elevate the feelings of the heart. The result 
we perceive in the fixed and petrified condition of Chi- 
nese civilization. 

" Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay ! " * 

The system of Confucius is, however, not alone domi- 
nant in China. The worshippers of Taou (Reason), 
acknowledging Laou-tse, the teacher of Confucius, as 
their leader, appear to have been originally speculative 
and experimental philosophers, as Confucius was a prac- 
tical moralist. Buddhism was introduced into China in 
the first century of the Christian era, by an emperor 
who felt the want of something more distinctly religious 
than either of these systems. The three sects, follow- 
ers of Confucius, of Laou-tse, and of Fo or Buddha, 
seem to dwell together in harmony ; and if there was 
formerly any violent struggle among them, its remem- 
brance has faded with the lapse of time. That there 
have been, however, jealousy, and court intrigue, and 
crime in connection with this difference of religious 
opinion, is indicated by the facts that, in 1780, the 
Grand Lama visited Pekin by invitation of the 

* Tennyson's Locksley Hall. 



40 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

emperor, and that he died soon after his arrival there, 
not without strong suspicions of poison. But it may be 
that the three systems had the less to cause dissension, 
as they occupied different portions of the field of human 
thought. Their doctrines do not appear contradictory 
to each other, but each of them limited, and all unsatis- 
factory. Neither of them, nor all combined, can satisfy 
the wants of the human soul. Their insufficiency, and 
the power of Christianity to supply it, are well repre- 
sented in the words of Professor Maurice. 

" If you did hear of a people which had for ages the 
strongest conviction that the authority of the Father was 
the one foundation of society, but had never been able 
to connect this conviction with the acknowledgment of 
anything mysterious and divine ; of a society which for 
ages has not been able to prevent a certain body of its 
subjects from dreaming that there is a mysterious and 
divine Word or Reason speaking to the wise man, out 
of which dream, however, no fruits had proceeded but 
impostures and delusions ; if you were told, that into 
the heart of this society Buddhism had come, with its 
strange testimony of a Spirit in the human race, the 
ordinary manifestations of which are seen in very igno- 
rant priests, its perfect manifestation often in an infant ; 
if you heard that these doctrines had never been able to 
combine, and yet that no one could succeed in banishing 
the other from an empire in which order and unity are 
prized as the highest blessings of all ; nay, that expe- 
rience had proved to reluctant sages that none of these 
elements of discord could safely be extinguished, that 
each was in some strange way needful to the permanence 
of that which it seemed to undermine ; — and if after 



RELIGIONS OTHER THAN CHRISTIAN. 41 

this you heard of a faith which assumed that the ground 
of all things and all men is a Father ; that He has spoken 
and does speak by his Filial Word to the hearts and 
spirits of men, so making them wise, and separating 
them from what is base and vain ; that this Filial Word 
has been made flesh and dwelt among men, and has 
given them power to become sons of God ; and that 
through Him a Spirit is given to dwell with men, to 
raise up a new spirit in them, to unite them to each 
other, to make them living portions of a living body ; — 
if, I say, these two sets of facts were presented to you 
side by side, would not you feel there was some strange 
adaptation in the one to the other ; that there was in 
the last the secret principle and power for which it was 
evident from the former that China had through cen- 
turies been asking in vain ? " * 

The systems we have examined, with that of classic 
mythology, and the Persian belief in the two contending 
powers of good and evil, and the wild fancies of the 
Icelandic Edda, all present a contrast to Christianity in 
many obvious aspects. One alone we shall point out, 
but that one includes the rest. These systems are all 
partial, Christianity is universal. The Persian religion 
takes but a partial view of evil, not discerning that 
Divine w T isdom uses it as the means of good. The 
Greek mythology is limited by its realistic character. 
It is the worship of substantial forms, men and women, 
only of greater strength and more ethereal frame, dwell- 
ing in a local habitation. The Hindoo system is 

* The Religions of the World, and their Relations to Christianity. 
By Frederick Denison Maurice, M. A., &c. Pages 223, 224. 



42 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

limited on the si,de of mysticism, acknowledging an 
all-embracing but impersonal Divine essence, — and, 
subordinate to this, the personification of the elements 
and of divine attributes. Buddhism resembles this in 
its Pantheistic tendency, and recognizes no living and 
active God beyond a deified mortal ; and the state 
religion of China is little beyond a state system of mor- 
als. Even Mohammedanism, derived as it is from the 
religion of the Bible, has been untrue to its origin in 
representing God too exclusively as sovereign. In con- 
trast to these, we find in Christianity the doctrine of 
One Supreme God, who fills all space, and is incon- 
ceivable in the greatness of his attributes, but who yet 
loves the beings he has made ; who exercises over them 
a just government, yet hears their prayers and merci- 
fully accepts their penitence ; who, while our Divine 
Sovereign, is yet our Father in Heaven. As we have 
seen, in the extract given from Maurice, the various 
systems prevalent in China, corresponding each to a 
distinct portion of the religion of Christ, so it is with 
the other beliefs of mankind. Each of the systems of 
Paganism has its part ; Christianity has the whole. 
The object which religion presents is too vast for the 
human mind, without distinct divine assistance, to con- 
template in all its aspects. Zoroaster beheld it on one 
side, Sakya-muni on another, the Greek on a third, and 
the Arabian on a fourth ; the Son of God alone, " who 
is in the bosom of the Father," presents to us, in his 
instructions and in his life, the being who is at once the 
Persian's Source of Light, the Buddhist's Infinite Es- 
sence, the majestic Ruler of heaven as beheld by the 
Greek, and the Sovereign of mankind as contemplated 



RELIGIONS OTHER THAN CHRISTIAN. 43 

by Mohammed, while all these conceptions are tran- 
scended and perfected in that of the Father, who K so 
loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son." 

We have next to remark in relation to the various 
systems of religion which we have examined, that they 
all bear traces of an original Monotheism. Nor is it 
the case with these alone. We need not investigate all 
the systems of brutal idolatry that have at any time dis- 
graced humanity. It would seem a waste of time to 
compare Christianity with these. Yet the rudest Feti- 
chism which worships stocks and stones, seems the relic 
of a forgotten doctrine of a universally pervading divine 
presence, and if universally pervading, necessarily One. 
The Classic System, amidst its multitude of gods, still 
subjected all the mythologic family to the sway of Ju- 
piter, w the Father of gods and men.'' In the Scandi- 
navian mythology, Odin, the supreme ruler of the 
existing world, is himself to be destroyed, with all the 
mythologic family, in the great rebellion of Loke ; but 
the catastrophe brings before us the mention of a Being 
far greater. "Then the powerful, the valiant, he who 
governs all things, comes out from his lofty abode, and 
renders divine justice."* 

In the religion of the ancient Persians, notwithstand- 
ing the recognition of Ahriman, the Power of Evil, as 
the rival of Ormuzd, the traces of original Monotheism 
are distinct ; for both Ormuzd and Ahriman alike pro- 
ceed from Zerouane, Time without bounds, — or, in one 
word, the Infinite. 

We find then, everywhere, traces of an original doctrine 

« 

* Edda, quoted in Butler's Horae Biblicae. 



44 EVIDENCES OP CHRISTIANITY. 

of One God ; and we find everywhere but in Chris- 
tianity, and the Jewish and Mohammedan systems which 
are connected with it, that this doctrine has become cor- 
rupted. If then the tendency of mankind has been thus 
generally to Polytheism, whence came that original idea 
of One God ? Men could not have developed it for 
themselves ; developed it, too, or generally, so all but 
universally, when their tendency has manifestly lain in 
the opposite direction. The inquiry brings us back to 
the Bible statement of an original revelation, an inter- 
course of the Divine Being with early patriarchs, preced- 
ing the Jewish and the Christian dispensations. We 
might conceive the idea of some superior Being or Be- 
ings to be intuitive ; but we cannot believe this respect- 
ing the idea of One God, when the tendency of the 
human mind was always to turn to the worship of 
many. 

There was then, we have reason to believe, an original 
revelation to mankind. This conclusion, to which we 
thus arrive, from observing its traces in man's subse- 
quent religious history, is not a priori incredible nor 
improbable, if a creative act be admitted. For such an 
act would be in itself miraculous ; that is, it would be 
an act of the Supreme, out of the common course of 
nature.* If we believe then in the miracle of man's 
creation, we may well believe also in that of his instruc- 
tion. That the Almighty should give to the being he 
had made, some knowledge of the source from whence 
he came, and the purpose for which he was designed, 
is no more than might be naturally expected of creative 

* Manual, § 2, page 4. 



RELIGIONS OTHER THAN CHRISTIAN. 45 

goodness. There was then, we more fully conclude, 
an original revelation. 

From this conclusion, two others of great importance 
follow. 

First, this result directly confirms the religion of the 
Bible, because the truth of an original revelation is 
stated there. Whatever interpretation is put upon the 
narratives of the book of Genesis, it cannot be questioned 
that they represent the human race as in its earliest ex- 
istence, ruled and instructed by its Creator in an especial 
manner. Nor can it be denied that the patriarchal reli- 
gion, according to those accounts, was the belief in One 
God. When we find, therefore, the earliest narratives of 
the Scriptures coinciding in their representations with 
what we learn from another source to be the truth, we 
are encouraged to trust their later testimony as alike 
true, and to give credit to the claim of especial divine 
revelation for the religion they communicate. 

Secondly, if the fact of an original revelation is estab- 
lished, or rendered in any degree probable, then to the 
same degree, the strongest objection against the super- 
natural authority of Christianity is removed. For the 
objection that is most felt in this age is to miracles, regard- 
ed as an interruption of the common course of nature. 
But if such an interruption has once taken place, it may 
occur again. The improbability is, indeed, so far 
removed, that there comes instead of it an antecedent 
probability that God, who had once interfered for the 
guidance of his children, would afford that guidance 
again, if at any time it should be equally needed. 



46 EVIDENCES OF CHBISTIANITY. 



CHAPTER II. 
Revelation, Primitive and Jewish. 

Shelley, in the notes to his atheistic poem of " Queen 
Mab," quotes in capitals, as if the question were un- 
answerable, the following sentence from D'Holbach's 
* Systeme de la Nature:" "S'il a parle, pourquoi 1'uni- 
vers n'est-il pas convaincu ? " "If he (God) has spoken, 
why is not the universe convinced ? " The objection 
these words convey against revelation is probably felt by 
many. It might be expressed at length in such terms 
as these : " If the Creator of the world saw fit to reveal 
himself to his children, w^ould he not make the commu- 
nication alike to all, and in such a manner that it could 
not be misunderstood? Would he not write his com- 
mands in letters of living light upon the heavens, where 
all could not but read? Nay, has he not in fact been 
thus impartial? Does not nature, does not his voice 
within us, reveal all that we need to know ? And would 
a wise and just Being choose one obscure nation as the 
peculiar objects of his care, and depositaries of his 
revealed will ? " 

If we take the doctrines of natural religion, as they 
have been given to us by the great writers of ancient or 
of modern times, we find in them sublime truths, to 
which our hearts readily yield assent. We learn that 
all nature testifies to the existence, the eternity, omnip- 



REVELATION, PRIMITIVE AND JEWISH. 47 

otence, and other exalted attributes of the Most High ; 
to the excellence of virtue, and the reality of its great 
reward in a future life ; and we are on the point of 
admitting the force of the challenging question, If nature 
teaches all these truths, what need is there of a revela- 
tion? 

We hear, too, in these days, much of the teaching of 
God's Spirit to all mankind. Many who deny the 
authority of the Jewish and Christian revelations do not 
hesitate to admit that Moses and Jesus were inspired ; 
but they claim that every good man is inspired also. In 
former times, it was the ignorant fanatic, who, unable to 
read the Bible, declared that he had no need of it, and 
asserted a personal inspiration for every wild fancy of 
his own. But now the claim of such inspiration is made 
by accomplished scholars, and not for themselves alone, 
but for all mankind. Here, then, is a second source of 
knowledge, which seems amply sufficient. What need 
of a miraculous revelation by Moses or by Christ, when 
nature teaches all that we need to know, and when, 
besides this, the voice of God is always testifying of his- 
truth to every human heart ? 

Before, however, we withdraw from the guidance of 
the Lord Jesus Christ, let us inquire how this double 
leadership of nature and of the Spirit sufficed for man- 
kind before the birth of our Savior. Had nature, or 
had any voice within the soul, taught the great doctrines 
of religion to all men alike ? If so, why were all nations 
except the Jews sunk in idolatry, paying worship to the 
host of heaven, to the powers of nature, to their own 
passions personified, to forms of the animal and even of 
the vegetable creation, to stocks and stones, to anything 



48 EVIDENCES OP CHRISTIANITY. 

rather than to the one living and true God ? Why is it 
that to this day, everywhere, beyond the influence of the 
Jewish and Christian religions, a similar idolatry pre- 
vails? Why, in ancient times, did those philosophers 
who had left the gross superstitions of their countrymen, 
wander into errors of different kinds, some maintaining 
that pleasure was the only good, while others turned 
from it with ascetic scorn ; some ascribing the rule over 
all things to a fate that controlled the actions of gods 
and men, and others declaring that there was no God, 
and that the universe was merely the result of chance ? 
Why, even at present, in the most enlightened nations, 
and with all the instruction which Judaism and Chris- 
tianity have incidentally furnished, do those who are 
thought to be foremost in wisdom appear to wander in 
darkness the moment they reject the faith of the gospel, 
one denying the belief in a future life, another rejecting 
the being of a God, and others yet, under the pretence 
of superior purity, setting aside the most common prin- 
ciples of virtuous conduct ? Is this the boasted teaching 
of nature, which leads now to superstition, and now to 
atheism? Was there no occasion that God should speak 
by Moses, when, in Egypt, then the most enlightened 
country in the world, the mass of the people worshipped 
calves, and dogs, and vegetables ; and the priesthood, if 
better instructed, went on teaching a religion that they 
knew was a lie ? No. There is, we admit, such a thing 
as natural religion ; there is a divine voice in every 
human heart. But that voice must be listened for with 
reverence ; it does not infallibly teach either the ignorant 
savage or the self-sufficient sage ; and the teachings of 
natural religion, plainly as they now commend them- 



REVELATION, PRIMITIVE AND JEWISH. 49 

selves to the understanding, were never clearly and 
fully declared, until they found utterance from inspired 
lips. 

Man needs, then, a revelation. It is the belief of 
Christians that this need has been met at three distinct 
periods of the world's history ; — first, in primitive or 
patriarchal times ; next, in the communications made to 
the Israelitish race ; and lastly, in the life and teachings 
of Jesus Christ. It matters not to our present purpose, 
that from some points of view, these may appear con- 
tinuous — the patriarchal shading off into the Jewish, 
and this into the Christian. This fact, if rightly con- 
templated, shows the continuity and consistency of the 
divine dealings ; but the periods remain sufficiently dis- 
tinct to be separately treated. 

Of the Primitive Revelation, our assurance rests most 
distinctly on the testimony of Scripture. This informs 
us of divine communications made to Adam and to 
Noah, both represented as ancestors of the whole human 
race ; and whatever allegorical or mythical explanation 
may be given to these narratives of primitive times, the 
purpose of the sacred writers is sufficiently clear, to 
teach that God revealed himself to the fathers of man- 
kind. We have found a confirmation of this truth while 
examining the heathen systems of religion ; for their 
tendency, being everywhere downward, indicates the 
height of their source. If the efforts of the human 
mind in India, through ages of comparative civilization, 
have but corrupted more and more the original Mono- 
theism, it is not likely that the human mind, unassisted, 
discovered that Monotheism in the barbarous ages that 
preceded ; and when we find the testimony of India con- 
4 



50 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

firmed by that of all the heathen world besides, each form 
of idolatry bearing witness to a purer faith that preceded 
it, we cannot avoid admitting an original revelation. 
The bestowment of this, materially affects the charge of 
partiality which is brought against the religion of the 
Old Testament. 

The original revelation must have been given to the 
ancestors of all mankind ; for the traces of it remain in 
all systems since. And even if the descent of all man- 
kind from a single pair be denied, it remains certain 
that the progenitors of the race were few in number, in 
comparison with the millions of their descendants. In- 
struction given to these few, then, would be communi- 
cated to their children. But at any subsequent period, 
when the earth was generally, inhabited, the idea of a 
universal revelation becomes more difficult to conceive. 
Its authentication must be miraculous, whether by an 
outward voice, or by any other sign, from heaven or 
on earth. Then, as no nation is to be distinguished 
above another, each one must have its prophet or its 
Messiah, and its own series of miracles, to establish his 
commission. And when the disciples of these various 
inspired leaders met on the boundaries of their separate 
realms, a constant miracle would be required to prevent 
variance and jealousy among those who had heard the 
divine message from different lips. Again, the wonders 
wrought by each holy messenger, though they might 
establish his authority with those who witnessed them, 
would possess far less weight with others. If all, then, 
are to have the same advantages, these miraculous signs 
must be multiplied for the personal instruction of all. 
And as the memory of them would grow dim with time, 



REVELATION, PRIMITIVE AND JEWISH. 51 

the necessity of impartial favor to each generation would 
require that the miracles should be repeated from age to 
age. Then if the miracles were not unanswerably con- 
vincing, their purpose would not be fulfilled ; if they 
were, faith would be forced, not free ; the voluntary 
action of the pious will in giving its adhesion to the 
truth would be forestalled, and only a slavish obedience 
could be rendered to an overwhelming evidence. Yet 
that evidence, if it forbade doubt, could not excite deep, 
reverential interest. Miracles would be matters of too 
common occurrence for this. Taking place continually, 
or at stated intervals, they would lose the dignity of 
divine interpositions. They would become, as it were, 
a part of the course of nature, only retaining enough of 
singularity and abruptness seriously to interfere with the 
confidence of mankind in the stability of nature's laws. 
That these laws will be regularly maintained, that the 
order of external things will be the same to-morrow that 
it was yesterday, is most important to human happiness, 
and even to human life. It is only thus that we can 
have assurance that a given course of conduct will pro- 
duce its proper results, and thus be encouraged to do 
right, and warned against what is wrong. But if mir- 
acles were things of every day, all this confidence would 
be lost. We find this exemplified in reading those 
works of antique literature, into which supernatural 
machinery enters largely ; such, for instance, as Tasso's 
ff Jerusalem Delivered." Surrounded on every side 
with signs and wonders, here with magic power, and 
there with divine interpositions, we perceive that the 
common rules of life are set aside. It is not zeal or 
valor that can be depended on to win the battle, but the 



52 EVIDENCES OP CHRISTIANITY. 

might of some magician on the one side, or guardian 
angel on the other. Thus would it be, to the peril of 
all consistent judgment, all free choice, and all manly 
energy, if miracles were rendered common ; and com- 
mon they must be, if the revelation God has given is to 
be communicated in the same manner, and with the 
same advantages for receiving it, to all his children, of 
every nation, and in every age of the world. 

And such a system, however it might commend itself 
to the minds of theorizing philosophers, is not conform- 
able to the divine method of instructing the human race, 
as we discover that method from the analogy of nature. 
It is not the plan of Providence to act on the dead level 
of a measured equality. On the contrary, variety of 
advantages appears to be the very law of God's dealings 
with mankind. Scarce two nations are precisely equal 
with regard to the degree of civilization they have at- 
tained. The Eastern Hemisphere had been the abode 
of culture in art and science for thousands of years be- 
fore our Western World was discovered ; yet, even there, 
portions, as the interior of Africa, are still in midnight 
darkness. So, too, it is with the knowledge which nature 
yields us of the Divine Being. God's power and wisdom 
are inscribed upon the heavens. The stars as they roll 
show forth the glory of Him who made them ; and it 
w^ould seem as if here, indeed, was a revelation that, 
being open to the eyes of all," was given with perfect 
impartiality. But how differently is that revelation of 
God in nature appreciated and understood ! The savage 
tribes understand it not. They see the glorious arch 
above glow, night after night, with its innumerable 
lights ; but they have never been taught to infer from it 



REVELATION, PRIMITIVE AND JEWISH. 53 

the existence of a creative spirit ; and if the mighty les- 
son cannot be entirely unread, yet are their ideas of its 
meaning inadequate and obscure. The magnificent 
spectacle is meant for all God's human offspring to profit 
by at length ; but generations unnumbered have passed, 
and other generations will pass, before the knowledge 
of its mysteries shall be conferred alike on all. 

But an objection yet remains. We may give up, it 
may be said, the idea of a perfect equality in the divine 
communication of knowledge. If a revelation was to 
be made, once for all, of course some must be nearer to 
it, in place or in time, than others. But that God 
should select one nation, as he is said to have chosen 
the Jews, should have made them his own peculiar peo- 
ple, given them laws for their guidance, sent prophets 
to remonstrate with them when they went astray, pro- 
tected them in captivity and brought them back to free- 
dom, while all the other nations, more powerful and 
more cultivated, were left in the darkness of idolatry, 
this surely would prove a partiality inconsistent with the 
justice and benevolence of the divine character. 

Would it prove this, we may ask in return, if it 
should appear that a revelation of God's will was orig- 
inally made to all, and that it was only by their own 
fault that other races lost that inheritance of God's vis- 
ible favor which Abraham and his descendants retained ? 
We have seen the proof that there was an original and 
impartial revelation ; but the world at large forsook the 
worship of the living and true God. Abraham remained 
faithful to it ; and he left that faithfulness, as at once a 
solemn charge and a precious heir-loom to his children. 
He and his race were not selected arbitrarily, nor other 



54 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

tribes arbitrarily excluded ; but, all having been treated 
alike at first, they who turned to idolatry were only left 
in the darkness they had chosen, while the faithful pa- 
triarch was favored with an increase of the light he loved. 
The selection of Israel, then, appears no longer incon- 
sistent with justice, or with the usual course of God's 
providence. It was, in the Divine Being, justice, not 
partiality, that conferred on faithfulness its appropriate 
blessing, making the chosen race the depositaries of 
divine instruction in degrees still higher, and protecting 
them through the varied course of their national exist- 
ence, until the time should come for conferring, through 
their means, on other races also, the blessing which had 
hitherto been their own. 

Again, the selection of the Jewish race for the recep- 
tion, development, and extension of religious truth, par- 
tial as it may seem, is in strict analogy to the actual 
working of the Almighty's plans, in other departments 
of the training of mankind. Other nations besides the 
Hebrews have had their own peculiar tasks and privi- 
leges. Greece gave to the world the love of beauty, 
alike in literature and art. Hers were the great master- 
pieces of epic, dramatic, and lyric poetry; hers the 
great triumphs of oratory ; hers the development of a 
nobler grace in sculpture than the colossal but rude 
images of Egypt had ever possessed ; hers the achieve- 
ments in architecture that make the ruins of her temples 
still the admiration of the world. Rome, on the other 
hand, was the great teacher in the art of ruling. What 
her poet said of her near two thousand years ago — that 
the task of Rome was to govern the nations — is true 
even yet, through the influence of Roman law upon the 



BEVELATION, PRIMITIVE AND JEWISH. 55 

institutions of many a land. Thus did God assign to 
the Jewish race to be the leaders of mankind in religious 
knowledge and religious feeling. That leadership they 
hold, unquestionably. Till any other portion of the 
great family of man can produce hymns as lofty as the 
Psalms of David, or representations of the Almighty as 
sublime and as true as the strains of Isaiah, the religious 
pre-eminence of the Hebrew race must be admitted. It 
is unquestionable that providentially they were God's 
chosen instruments for declaring divine truth ; and if 
providentially, wherefore not also miraculously? 

We find in the selection of the Hebrew race to be 
the depositaries of sacred truth an analogy still closer 
to the dealings of Providence. Observing the course of 
history from the earliest ages, among Gentiles as well as 
Jews, we find everywhere some persons exercising the 
priestly office, the instructors of their fellow-men in 
matters of religion. Often we find especial families or 
races of men chosen, the Brahmins among the Hindoos, 
no less than the race of Aaron among the Israelites, to 
bear testimony before all the people to the existence of 
something'unseen, but superior to all else. Thus, among 
the nations of the earth, the Hebrews were the priestly 
nation. As the individual priest in the community, as 
the house of Levi among the twelve tribes, as the house 
of Aaron in the tribe of Levi, so was the nation itself, 
among all the inhabitants of the earth, deputed to receive 
the heavenly treasure, and communicate it to all the rest. 
The Christian revelation, indeed, abolished this distinc- 
tion. Under it the true priesthood of the earth con- 
sists not of the descendants of any one tribe or nation, 
but of the sincere followers of Christ. Thus speaks an 



56 EVIDENCES OP CHRISTIANITY. 

apostle : " Ye are a chosen generation, a royal priest- 
hood, a holy nation, a peculiar people."* Our Savior, 
we are told, " hath made us kings and priests unto God."f 
But it has been well observed that our Lord, in his lan- 
guage respecting the new birth, " gathers up the very 
meaning of the old dispensation, shows us what a truth 
was involved in every part of it, how every part had 
been prepared for the full revelation of this truth. His 
coming was, no doubt, to destroy the barrier between 
Jew and Gentile, but not till that barrier had been 
proved to have its justification in the very condition and 
being of man, in his relation to God and to the world. 
If there is a flesh in man, by obedience to which he be- 
comes degraded, sensual, idolatrous, — if he naturally is 
obedient to this flesh, and can only attain the rights of 
a spiritual creature when the Lord of all raises him 
above his nature, above himself, — then we can understand 
why a whole nation should have been called by its posi- 
tion in reference to other nations, by its strength and 
weakness, righteousness and sins, by the experience of 
all its individual members, to set forth this mighty fact, 
in which the eternal destinies of mankind must be in- 
volved." t 

The selection of the Jews as the peculiar people of 
God was not, then, for their own sake alone. To keep 
alive on earth the belief in his own existence, in his 
attributes of unity, spirituality, power, and love, until 
other branches of the human race should be prepared to 
receive that belief, was the great purpose which God 

* 1 Peter ii. 9. t Rev. i. 6. 

t Maurice, Religions of the World, and their Relations to Christi- 
anity. Part II. Lecture II. Page 186. 



REVELATION, PRIMITIVE AND JEWISH. 57 

accomplished by the selection of Israel. Abraham, 
found faithful in a faithless generation, left his idola- 
trous kindred, that he and his might retain their purity 
of worship. To him, then, the promise was given, not 
only of the number and glory of his own descendants, 
but that in his seed should "all nations of the earth be 
blessed." For long ages the prediction remained un- 
fulfilled. If we can imagine a celestial being con tern- 
plating the earth and its inhabitants through those ages, 
we may conceive that to him the purpose of Divine 
Providence may have been deeply mysterious. He 
would see far and wide through the earth the appalling 
and impure rites of heathen worship, — here parents 
sacrificing their children to Moloch, there festivals held 
in honor of Ashtaroth, the Syrian Venus, accompanied 
with acts of vile debauchery. In one land alone would 
he witness the worship of a spiritual God, recognized as 
the Creator of heaven and earth, a Being whose eyes 
were too pure to behold iniquity. Over every altar in 
other realms would he perceive some image ; in one 
country a human form of matchless grace, in another 
some grotesque combination of various animals, or a 
many-headed or many-handed monster ; but at the one 
altar in Jerusalem would he see neither statue nor paint- 
ing, for the God that was worshipped there had forbid- 
den any such degrading representations of his invisible, 
inconceivable majesty. And what would strike our 
beholder most with amazement would be, that while in 
other lands men pursued their course of error with no 
voice to bid them pause, around that altar at Jerusalem 
were prophets speaking in the name of God, and by 
admonitions and warnings restraining the people from 



58 EVIDENCES OP CHRISTIANITY. 

following the evil example of other nations. Well might 
the angelic spectator exclaim, "Why is this? Why 
has the favor of the Almighty thus been granted to a 
single race ? Why this sacred light given only to Judah, 
and withheld from every other section of the world ? " 
" These things," said an apostle, " the angels desire to 
look into." But how would the doubts of the inquiring 
spirit be removed, and his anxiety be changed to joy and 
praise, if it was granted him to perceive that all the 
privileges bestowed on Judah were intended, in the 
course of ages, for the advantage of all mankind ; if he 
witnessed at length the appearance of the Savior, heard 
from his lips the law of universal love, and saw his dis- 
ciples going forth to declare the equal privileges of Jew 
and Gentile ! Yes, in Jesus Christ, " out of Zion went 
forth the Law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusa- 
lem." The Old Testament dispensation attained its 
purpose in the events of the New ; and then, as a plant 
that has borne its fruit, it faded and died. Less than 
forty years after the crucifixion of Jesus, the nation that 
had rejected him sank as a political power, and its stately 
and time-honored form of worship ceased, never again 
to be renewed. All that was partial, all that was pre- 
paratory, came to an end. The universal religion, 
brought by Jesus Christ, remained and prospered; it 
conquered the heathenism that, clothed with imperial 
power, assailed it with all the violence of persecution ; 
it extended its sway from land to land through the civ- 
ilized world ; the darkness of barbarism grew light be- 
fore it; and, strong as in its earliest days, it still goes 
forth, " conquering and to conquer." 



GREEK AND ROMAN CIVILIZATION. 59 



CHAPTER III. 

Greek and Roman Civilization. 

We have, in the previous chapters, found cause to 
believe in an original revelation, communicated by the 
Creator to his human offspring. We have seen that the 
belief that he continued to manifest himself to one 
especial family and nation as he did not to the rest of 
mankind, involves nothing contrary to his impartial jus- 
tice. For a continuous revelation to all mankind would 
have involved a constant succession of miracles, and 
thus have interfered with man's confidence in the stabil- 
ity of the laws of nature, with his freedom of choice and 
action, and with the right development of his character; 
while there was no partiality, but an action consistent 
with justice and analogous to the course of Providence 
elsewhere, in leaving the heathen world to the darkness 
they had chosen, and conferring on the faithful patri- 
arch still fuller revelations, thus constituting him and 
his descendants the priests of mankind, commissioned at 
length to impart the true religion to the world at large. 

It is the belief of Christians that this commission was 
fulfilled in Jesus Christ ; that the great purpose for 
which the Jewish race was set apart, was accomplished 
when a member of that race, divinely called and quali- 
fied, proclaimed a religion more spiritual than that of 
Moses, adapted, not, like that, to a single race, but to 
universal reception, and when his disciples, obeying his 



60 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

commands, went forth "into all the world," to "preach 
the gospel to every creature." 

But the inquiry recurs with regard to the Christian 
revelation, which first attracted our attention with re- 
gard to any revelation at all. Was it necessary? We 
cannot believe that God would interpose in a remarkable 
manner without suitable occasion. Did such occasion 
exist when Jesus came into the world? Philosophers 
had then lived, the greatest, or at least among the 
greatest, whom the world has known — Zoroaster, Py- 
thagoras, Socrates, Plato, Cicero. Great advancement 
had been made in civilization. Sculpture and painting, 
poetry and eloquence, the art of war and the arts of 
pea'ce, had been cultivated with a success which after 
ages have admired and emulated, but seldom surpassed. 
Long years of discord had given place to a firm and 
orderly government. The world was at peace. Laws 
which, on the whole, were wise and just, were regularly 
administered. What need was there of a revelation in 
the reign of Augustus ? 

While, however, we admit what the world had at- 
tained, let us also observe in what it was deficient. 
Notoriously, the mass of the people had no correct views 
of God. The deities they worshipped had all the pas- 
sions of men, and indulged them in a degree that would 
have rendered men unendurable by their race. Not to 
repeat the well-known tales of the lawless violence, the 
implacable revenge, the shameless impurity of the other 
gods, Jupiter 'himself, the ruler of all, the best repre- 
sentation heathenism could offer of the infinite majesty 
of heaven, was at one moment engaged in some base 
intrigue, and at another sleeping, regardless, of his im- 



GREEK AND ROMAN CIVILIZATION. 61 

perial office, outwitted by the crafty Juno with the ces- 
tus of Venus.* 

Such were the gods of popular belief. But in the 
reign of Augustus, the educated classes had no faith in 
these, nor, definitely, in any God at all. They con- 
tinued to appear in the temples, and take part in rites 
which they despised, but w T hich they thought useful as a 
mode of influencing the people ; for themselves, some 
thought there were gods, some that there w r as none, 
and the greater part that probably there might be. 

With regard to the doctrine of a future life, the state 
of opinion was much the same. The mass of the people 
believed in Elysium and Tartarus — regions of shadowy 
existence, differing in degrees of dolefulness ; as the 
shade of Achilles, the most honored in Elysium, told 
Ulysses that he would rather be slave to a poor man on 
earth than reign over all the dead.f Of the educated, 
some thought it probable that there would be a future 
life ; but the greater part had not even this approach to 
faith upon the subject. 

Thus the advance of knowledge and refinement in 
other respects had failed to introduce correct views with 
regard to religion. And* the reason is sufficiently ob- 
vious. The experience and observation of man acquaint 
him with the world around him, and with the world 
within. He learns to work upon the materials which 
nature presents ; to cultivate the earth, to cleave and 
carve w 7 ood, fuse metals, and quarry stone. His pro- 
cesses become more skilful and delicate as time advances, 



* Iliad, Book XIV., lines 153-351. 
t Odyssey, Book XI., lines 487-490. 



62 EVIDENCES OP CHRISTIANITY. 

and he attains to high excellence in the arts from the 
guidance of nature and his own intelligence. The mind, 
too, is open to his survey ; and from the testimony of 
his own consciousness he can construct noble theories of 
philosophy. But there is also a world above ; and of 
the facts connected with that world neither outward 
nature nor inward consciousness affords him adequate 
information. A stronger proof of this cannot be needed 
than the fact already adverted to, that even now, with 
all the intelligence that eighteen centuries have added to 
that possessed in the days of Augustus, those philoso- 
phers who deny the Christian revelation are far from 
agreement with regard to the most important truths of 
natural religion. 

And if heathenism, whether assisted or not by the dim 
traditions of a primitive revelation, had failed to inform 
man of the truth respecting the object of worship, it had 
failed also in instructing him how worship should be 
rendered. Idol feasts, especially of such deities as Ash- 
teroth and Venus, were marked by the most debasing 
impurity. The hideous custom of human sacrifices pre- 
vailed among almost all the nations of antiquity. The 
two great epic poets represent their heroes, Achilles * 
and iEneas, as offering such sacrifices at funeral rites ; 
and the coolness with which the incident is mentioned 
by Virgil shows that such crime against man and God, 
if not common in the age of Augustus, was, at least, not 
regarded with horror, f The custom of human sacrifice 



* Iliad, Book XXIII., line 175. 
t " Sulraone creatos 

Quatuor hie juvenes, totidem quos educat Ufens, 



GHEEK AND ROMAN CIVILIZATION. 63 

was continued, occasionally, as late as the reign of 
Diocletian, and was therefore abolished only by the 
triumph of Christianity. 

With regard to the observance of the moral law, it 
might be thought that here, at least, the instruction of 
nature would be sufficient. But although the moral 
sense and conscience of mankind have alwavs borne tes- 
timony to duty, the history of heathen nations shows 
that a revelation was needed here also, to give clearer 
and fuller views of right, and still more, to supply mo- 
tives of adequate strength for its observance. The age 
when our Savior appeared exemplifies this the more, as 
the unparalleled success of the Roman arms had intro- 
duced the influence of luxury and ambition, to the cor- 
ruption alike of public and private virtue. Freedom 
was no more. It was not deserved ; it was not wished 
for ; it would not have been appreciated nor maintained 
if it had come. Domestic slavery existed in its most 
atrocious form ; the very life of the bondman being at 
the discretion, or rather at the caprice, of his master; 
as instanced in the well-known incident of the slave who 
had accidentally broken a crystal vase being ordered to 
be thrown into the fish pond for his offence. The great 
public pastime of the Romans was the spectacle of mur- 
der in the amphitheatres. A form of sensuality that 
cannot now be named, was practised without shame; 

Viventes rapit ; inferias, quos immolet umbris, 
Captivoque rogi perfundat sanguine flammas." 

JEneid. Book X. 517-520. 

M Yinxerat et post terga manus, quos mitteret umbris 
Inferias, caeso sparsuros sanguine flammam." 

XI. 81, 82. 



64 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

■ 

and almost without concealment. Nor did the age of 
Augustus exhibit heathen corruption at its worst ; the 
course was still downward ; and though Christianity 
soon began to apply a counteracting influence, yet before 
that influence could be fully exerted, the world was to 
see how far human folly and wickedness could go in 
the reigns and the persons of a Caligula, a Nero, and an 
Elagabalus. The last, the most disgusting of tyrants, 
was a priest, a fanatical devotee of the god from whom 
he derived his name. Heathenism could sink no lower 
than this. 

It will be urged, however, that although the religion 
of antiquity was thus deficient, its philosophy was the 
noblest that the world has seen. No modern name has 
eclipsed those of Socrates and Plato. And, to select 
one whose life had ended not long before the Christian 
era, how few in any period of the world have left a fame 
to be compared with that of Cicero ! We see in him 
not only the orator and statesman, employing his un- 
equalled talents for the punishment of the rapacious 
Verres, for the defence of the injured and oppressed, to 
sustain the cause of order against Catiline, and that of 
liberty against Antony ; but the philosopher, devoting 
the scanty leisure of a busy life to the preparation of 
imperishable essays on Duty and Immortality, while the 
circumstances of his death give him a place among the 
martyrs of freedom. If the teaching of nature could 
form such a character, what need of a revelation ? Even 
allowing that the unrecognized influence of earlier divine 
teaching had shared in its production, yet since the re- 
sult was there, what need was there of a new revelation 
to the age that had seen a Cicero ? 



GREEK AND ROMAN CIVILIZATION. 65 

To these questions it may be replied, that we cannot 
take a single exceptional case, or a few such cases, as a 
standard of the progress or the power of mankind. To 
judge of the necessity of a revelation, we need to know, 
not what the greatest and best among millions could 
become, but what mankind at large could attain. Yet 
even these exceptional cases show, by their imperfection, 
how low must have been the condition of public morality 
in the midst of which they appeared so brilliant. We 
have selected this instance of Cicero in good faith, as 
one of the brightest that antiquity presents. And yet, 
upon a closer survey of his history, we find the conduct 
of this great man not only marked by the grossest vanity, 
and by repeated desertion of his political principles, but 
in various instances by still graver offences. We find 
him forsaking her who had been his wife for thirty years, 
and marrying, almost immediately, a young maiden, 
whose extensive property had been placed under his 
charge ; we find him repeatedly guilty of falsehood, and 
implicated in such acts of violence and rapacity as he 
had denounced in others with the most indignant elo- 
quence. We do not, indeed, judge these offences in 
him by the strict standard of Christian morality. Rather 
do we look on him, and on other illustrious men of hea- 
then antiquity, with an admiration like that with which 
we view feats of dexterity performed by one who is 
chained or crippled. Our wonder is that so much should 
be achieved under circumstances so unfavorable. 

And allowing the eminence of the ancient philoso- 
phers, not only in the theory but in the practice of vir- 
tue, they could not exert a purifying influence upon the 
mass of mankind. There needs, for such an influence, 
5 



66 EVIDENCES OP CHRISTIANITY. 

something more ardent and more engaging than philoso- 
phy : more ardent to inspire the efforts of the teacher ; 
more engaging to win the attention of the people. The 
philosophers never expected nor attempted to instruct 
the mass of their countrymen. They left these to the 
guidance, such as it was, of the national religion, to 
which they themselves paid outward respect. Among 
the last words of Socrates was a request to his friend to 
offer a sacrifice to -ZEsculapius. Such acquiesence in 
the popular superstition was not the way to effect an 
extensive reform in faith or morals. And even if the 
philosophers had undertaken such a task, their instruc- 
tions were given in a form too abstract to engage general 
attention, and had no authoritative sanction to enforce 
them. In Christianity, on the other hand, there was, 
to arrest the inquirer and to guide the learner, the charm 
and example of a perfect character ; and the precepts 
given possessed an authority more than human, as 
being communicated by one who was the delegate of 
heaven. 

The failure of philosophy to instruct mankind is 
evident from an observation of the period between its 
highest attainments in the age of Plato and the birth 
of Christ, — a period of about four hundred years. 
During this time, if ever, the influence of philosophy 
should have been seen, in improving the morals and the 
condition of mankind ; yet at the close of this period 
corruption had greatly increased ; the ancient patriotic 
spirit of Greece and Rome had departed with the ancient 
simple manners ; liberty was no more ; and while reli- 
gion had lost its influence over cultivated minds, the mass 
of the people were still in blind subjection to heathen 



GREEK AND ROMAN CIVILIZATION. 67 

superstition. Philosophy then, as a reforming power 
in the world, had been tried and found wanting. 

Its insufficiency, too, was confessed by some of its 
ablest teachers. A few passages from ancient writers 
may suffice to show how the need of a revelation was 
felt and acknowledged by those who were best qualified 
to appreciate what philosophy could accomplish. 

In the "Second Alcibiades " of Plato, Alcibiades is 
represented as on his way to the temple to offer his 
devotions, when he meets Socrates. % The philosopher 
draws from him an acknowledgement of his own igno- 
rance and that of mankind respecting the true worship, 
and advises him to wait with patience until he can be 
instructed. Alcibiades inquires from whom the instruc- 
tion is to come. Socrates replies, from one who is con- 
cerned for his good ; but there is now a cloud before 
his mind, which must be removed before he can see 
such objects aright. The young man declares his earnest 
desire to learn, and his readiness to obey any command 
of this mysterious teacher, if he may thereby become 
better. Socrates assures him of the willingness of the 
promised instructor ; and they agree that it is best not 
to render sacrifices until he shall manifest himself, for 
which Alcibiades expresses his strong desire. 

The design of Socrates in this dialogue was probably 
to awaken serious thought ; and the promised Teacher 
was that Divine Presence of which Socrates was con- 
scious, and which in his own case he characterized as 
an attendant "demon" or spirit. However this may 
have been, the passage contains a striking admission of 
the ignorance of mankind in general as to the true 
service of God. 



68 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

In the " Apology," Socrates uses the following lan- 
guage : w You may give over all hopes of amending 
men's manners for the future, unless God be pleased to 
send you some other person to instruct you." 

Again, in the " Phaedon," after Socrates has discoursed 
on immortality, and observed that full knowledge of 
divine things was not to be attained till the soul was 
separated from the body, the practical result is given in 
the answer of Simmias. It is best, then, he says, if 
w r e cannot by all our study find out the truth, w to take 
the best and most probable results of human reason, 
and steer our course by these, unless one could proceed 
by a clearer and safer way, in a stronger vessel, as by 
some divine revelation." 

Lord Bolingbroke, who maintains the opposite opin- 
ion, yet observes, "But it must be admitted that Plato 
insinuates in many places the want, or the necessity, of 
a divine revelation to discover the external service God 
requires, and the expiation for sin, to give stronger 
assurances of the rewards and punishments that await 
men in another world, — and to frame a system of the 
whole order of things, both in this world and the next." * 

Among the sects of Grecian philosophy there is one 
which claims especial attention from its near approach 
to Christian morality, and the noble characters of some 
of its disciples. The Stoics were the followers of Zeno, 
who lived three hundred years before Christ. The basis 
of the Stoic system was the idea of living according to 
nature ; not, however, the nature of the individual, but 
universal nature. But among all things, while some 

* Bolingbroke's Works, vol. v., page 214. 



GREEK AND ROMAN CIVILIZATION. 69 

were bad, and some indifferent, wisdom a^d virtue alone 
were good. To these, therefore, the life must be con- 
formed. The truly wise man is represented as perfect 
and sufficient in himself; pain and evil, which subdue the 
rest of mankind, are powerless over him ; he feels them, 
but does not yield to them. While we cannot but recog- 
nize much that is noble in these thoughts, we perceive 
at once their deficiencies, in the want of a principle of 
religious obligation, and of that humility which, recog- 
nizing human weakness, would have sought and wel- 
comed the hope of aid from a higher power. These 
deficiencies are strikingly apparent in the belief and 
practice of the Stoics with respect to suicide. The wise 
man, perfect and independent, was, of course, master 
of his own life ; whether he should retain or leave it, 
was but a question of convenience ; and though he must 
never admit that pain had conquered him, yet to prefer 
death to other means of suffering had in it a boldness 
which prevented the proud spirit of the Stoic from dis- 
cerning his own inconsistency. 

Thus Zeno himself, when near a hundred years old, 
took his own life, because he had broken a joint of his 
finger by a fall. Perhaps some remainder of superstition 
mingled with his motives, for he declared he considered 
the accident a summons from the invisible world. 

The most memorable disciples of the Stoic school 
were Cato the younger, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius. 
The determination of Cato to destroy himself rather 
than yield to a conqueror, has been held up to admiration ; 
yet it was rather a flight from what he dreaded, than a 
triumph over it. Wise and virtuous as he was, he 
judged too rashly, if he thought that there was no more 



70 EVIDENCES OP CHRISTIANITY. 

that he could do for his country ; for none can tell what 
influence he might have exerted in the stormy times that 
followed. 

Epictetus was at first a slave, and Stoicism in him 
was exemplified by the utmost patience under the cruelty 
of his master. One day, when this man was torturing 
him by twisting his leg, Epictetus smiled, and quietly 
said, " You will break it ; " and when it did break, only 
remarked, "Did not I tell you so?" Possessed of such 
heroic patience, he appears to have differed from the 
other Stoics on the subject of suicide. He afterwards 
obtained his freedom, and was, during a long life, a 
teacher of philosophy. He left nothing in writing, but 
his sayings were given to the world by his pupil, Arrian. 

Marcus Aurelius exhibited the virtue of Stoicism in a 
station the most strongly contrasted to that of Epictetus. 
Adopted by Antoninus as heir of the empire, he exer- 
cised over himself that continual watchfulness which 
enabled him wisely to govern others. A lover of peace, 
he w T as called to reign at a period of continual warfare ; 
but triumphed over all his enemies by his energy and 
wisdom, and secured their future allegiance by his 
clemency. But for his persecution of the Christians, 
his memory would be almost without a stain. But that 
persecution is the less excusable in him from the very 
greatness of his character in other respects. As an 
energetic ruler, it cannot be pleaded for him that the 
cruelties inflicted during a series of years were unknown 
to him ; as a wise ruler, he should have been raised 
above superstition and vulgar prejudice ; and as a hu- 
mane ruler in other departments of his office, his feelings 
must have shrunk from the crime which mistaken policy 



GREEK AND ROMAN CIVILIZATION. 71 

prompted him to commit, and from which his Stoic 
philosophy had not the power to save him. 

It is probable that the virtue of Aurelius, and even 
that of Epictetus, owed much to the unsuspected influ- 
ence of Christian ideas. Epictetus was a slave at Rome 
not many years after the persecution of the Christians 
under Nero. In the steadfastness of the martyrs in that 
persecution, all Rome received a lesson of patience be- 
yond what Stoicism had ever taught ; and even they who 
knew not the religious motive of that patience, might 
be led to admire and imitate its practical exhibition. 
The difference between Epictetus and the earlier Stoics, 
respecting suicide, appears to indicate that a new influ- 
ence had been added to theirs. In the time of Marcus 
Aurelius, Christian thought must have penetrated society 
still more deeply ; and the Emperor, who in his "Medi- 
tations" ascribes all of good that he had attained to 
the instruction and example of his parents and teachers, 
may, probably, have omitted one influence which had 
had its part in making him what he was, and whose 
blessing he had mistakenly repaid with persecution. 

The number, however, was small, of those whom 
heathen philosophy, in the elevated form of Stoicism, 
could lead in the path of virtue. Its principles were too 
abstract and cold for human nature in general. Men 
needed the recognition of a heavenly Father, the exam- 
ple of a perfect Savior. The want of a revelation, often 
felt and acknowledged by the philosophers, was realized 
still more deeply by those who had not light like theirs 
to guide them. And this w r ant was further testified by 
the eagerness with which the world received that revela- 
tion when it came. While Epictetus and Aurelius were 



72 EVIDENCES OP CHRISTIANITY. 

giving forth the best rays of heathen wisdom, already- 
mingled, perhaps, with a light whose origin they did not 
recognize, that light was eagerly hailed by ever increas- 
ing thousands. With the uneducated, heathenism had 
possession of the ground ; with the educated, philosophy. 
These were sustained against the intrusion of the new 
religion by all the power of the state ; a power which 
was unsparingly exerted in a succession of persecutions. 
Yet the new system lived and triumphed. The world 
would not have embraced it had it not felt its need. 



APOLLONIUS, THE CHRIST OF PHILOSOPHY. 73 



CHAPTER IV. 

Apollonius, the Christ of Philosophy. 

The advance of Christianity in the heathen Roman 
Empire was opposed not only by the force of persecu- 
tion, and by the arguments of such writers as Celsus 
and Porphyry. About two hundred years from the 
birth of Christ, the attempt was made to set up a rival 
to him, in the interest of heathenism. Such appears to 
have been the origin of the biography of Apollonius 
of Tyana, written by Philostratus at the command of 
the Empress Julia Domna, and purporting to be derived 
from an ancient document, the narrative of Damis, the 
companion and friend of Apollonius. 

We have, then, in the life of Apollonius, the best 
effort of classic cultivation to surpass the narratives of 
the life of Jesus. The four evangelists had given to 
the world a portraiture of superhuman excellence ; and 
a philosopher at the imperial court undertook a similar 
task. • We shall see how he succeeded. 

In preparing this chapter, we have had before us not 
only the recent entertaining book of M. Reville,* but that 
of Dr. Baur on which it is founded, and the work of 
Philostratus himself. 

The birth of Apollonius is thought to have nearly 
coincided in date with that of Jesus. His native place, 

* Apollonius of Tyana, the Pagan Christ of the Third Century. 
By Albert Reville. 



74 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

Tyana, was a city of Cappadocia in Asia Minor; and 
he pursued his early studies at Tarsus, not far off, pos- 
sibly under the same teachers from whom the youthful 
Saul was receiving the elements of Grecian learning. 
If we may believe Philostratus, whose account we shall 
now follow, the birth of the future sage had been foretold 
to his mother by Proteus, the changeful and prophetic 
deity, who became incarnate in his person. A flock of 
swans sang at his birth, as at that of Apollo. In youth 
he embraced with great zeal the philosophy of Pythag- 
oras, and became so famous for the beauty of his person 
and his early wisdom, that his biographer traces to him 
a proverb of the neighborhood, M Whither run you so 
fast? Is it to see the young man? " Having observed 
the five years' silence prescribed to the disciples of Py- 
thagoras, he set out on his travels. At Nineveh he was 
joined by Damis, afterwards his biographer. Babylon, 
which other authorities represent to have been then in 
desolation, he found to be still a royal capital, with 
walls a hundred and fifty feet high, and nearly a hun- 
dred in thickness. In India, he received instruction 
from divine sages, who dwelt on the summit of a moun- 
tain, surrounded by mists and miracles. Returning 
thence, the fame of his wisdom went before him. He 
converted Ephesus to philosophy and virtue, and restored 
concord to divided Smyrna. The people of the former 
city, being afflicted with the plague, sent messengers to 
Smyrna for Apollonius. He transferred himself to 
Ephesus in a moment, and drove away the plague by a 
treatment equally strange and energetic. The evil 
spirit which occasioned the disease appeared in the form 
pf £in old beggar. Apollonius directed that this person 



APOLLONIUS, THE CHRIST OF PHILOSOPHY. 75 

should be stoned to death in the theatre ; and when the 
heap of stones was removed, there appeared under it, 
not the murdered beggar, but a living dog. One might 
fancy that this story had its foundation in Apollonius 
having taught the Ephesians to guard their city from 
the plague by sternly excluding the squalid poverty in 
whose rags the infection lay concealed. 

Apollonius soon after visited the site of ancient Troy, 
where he called up the shade of Achilles, and received 
from him answers to several questions. Achilles, though 
so long dead, retained his hatred of the Trojans ; so 
that he warned Apollonius to dismiss from his company 
one of his disciples, because he was descended from 
Priam. It is not to the sage's honor that he obeyed 
this admonition. 

In Corinth, Apollonius opened the eyes of an enam- 
oured youth to the fact that his bride was an evil spirit ; 
and caused the marriage feast, with its gold and silver 
vessels, cup-bearers and cooks, to vanish into air. 

At Athens, a youth irreverently laughing at Apollo- 
nius's instructions, the sage pronounced him possessed 
by a demon, and ejected it forthwith, the demon proving 
his presence by overthrowing a statue. 

More credibly, and highly to his honor, he is related 
to have censured the gladiatorial combats of the Athe- 
nians. "He refused going to their assembly when in- 
vited, saying the place was impure and polluted with 
blood." With the Pythagoreans generally, he offered 
only bloodless sacrifices, and abstained from animal food, 
and even from clothing of whose fabric any animal 
growth formed a part. 

From Olympia, he wrote to the Ephori of Sparta, 



76 EVIDENCES OP CHRISTIANITY. 

who had sent him a deputation, and enjoined them to 
restore the ancient simplicity of manners. The magis- 
trates, more submissive to good advice than magistrates 
usually are, complied at once, and were favored with a 
truly laconic letter of commendation. 

Subsequently, on a visit to Sparta, he heard of a 
young man who was to be tried on the charge of neg- 
lecting the affairs of the republic for his own commer- 
cial pursuits. He visited him, and by rousing his pride 
of ancestry, and representing to him the ignoble char- 
acter of mercantile transactions, brought him to tears 
of repentance. He then obtained his pardon from the 
Ephori. Besides the improbability of the story, repre- 
senting the laws of Lycurgus to be in force at Sparta in 
the corrupt age of Claudius, we have to notice its false 
morality and ruinous political economy, in condemning 
useful labor as dishonorable, 

Apollonius soon sifter visited Rome, where Nero had 
recently ascended the throne, The account of thq. ex- 
cesses which that Emperor was committing does not 
agree with the statements of authentic history, according 
to which, the first five years of his reign were marked 
by wise government and becoming deportment, under 
the guidance of Seneca and Burrhus. 

At Rome, Apollonius met the funeral of a young 
maiden, and commanding the attendants to set down 
the bier, touched the girl, pronounced a few words over 
her, and awakened her from her seeming death. While 
other circumstances of this story seem derived from the 
miracle at Nain, the doubt expressed by the biographer 
whether death had actually taken place, reminds us of 
the Savior's expression in relation to the daughter of 



APOLLONIUS, THE CHRIST OF PHILOSOPHY. 77 

Jairus, " The maiden is not dead, but sleepeth." The 
relations of the girl presented Apollonius with a hundred 
and fifty thousand drachmas, which he settled on her as 
a marriage portion. 

We next find him at Cadiz, examining the phenomena 
of the tides, whose cause he pronounced to be winds, 
blowing from caverns by the side of the ocean, and 
drawn in again alternately, like human breath. 

In Spain, Apollonius encouraged the rebellion of 
Vindex against Nero. Returning eastward to Syracuse, 
he was informed of a recent prodigy, in the birth of a 
child with three heads. From this he foretold the ac- 
cession and transient reigns of three Emperors; soon 
after verified in the persons of Galba, Otho, and Vi- 
tellius. 

After many wise instructions given in Greece, Apol- 
lonius reached Alexandria some time before the arrival 
of Vespasian in that city. That conqueror sought his 
advice in regard to the acceptance of the empire ; and 
yielded to his counsel, not to restore the republic, but 
to ascend the throne. Apollonius at the same time 
informed him of the burning of the Capitol at Rome, 
which had taken place only the day before. 

The Pythagorean doctrine of the transmigration of 
souls was exemplified in a lion, which Apollonius saw 
in Egypt, and declared to be animated by the spirit of 
the ancient king Amasis. The lion wept while Apol- 
lonius told his story, and the philosopher comforted him 
with regal honors. 

Apollonius next visited the Gymnosophists, or un- 
clothed philosophers of Ethiopia, who received him with 
respect, commanding a tree to make obeisance to him. 



78 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

He held with them a long discussion on the respective 
merits of the Indian sages and themselves. 

In the reign of Titus, as in that of his father, Apol- 
lonius was in high favor; but under Domitian, he en- 
couraged Nerva and others to rebellion against that 
tyrant. Domitian sent to arrest him, but he anticipated 
his intention by hastening at once to Rome. After 
imprisonment and other ill treatment, he was examined 
before the Emperor. He appeared with dignity, even 
with haughtiness ; defended himself against the charges 
brought, but admitted that men called him a god, and 
declared that every good man was en titled to that appel- 
lation. 

He explained, however, some words he had used be- 
fore the statue of Domitian, in a manner that seems 
more ingenious than truthful. His defence was suc- 
cessful ; and the Emperor acquitted him of all charges. 
The philosopher thanked Domitian for this vindication, 
but blamed him for encouraging informers ; and, quoting 
a line of Homer, " Thou canst not slay me, for to thee 
I am not mortal," vanished from his presence. The 
same day he was seen at Puteoli, a hundred and fifty 
miles distant. 

The philosopher afterwards visited the cave of Tro- 
phonius, the son of Apollo, and remained several days 
in his realms of darkness ; returning afterwards to the 
surface of the earth, by a passage before untrodden, in 
Aulis, about fifty miles from Lebadea, where he had 
disappeared. 

^ Returning to Ephesus, the philosopher gave instruc- 
tions to a crowd of admiring disciples.. One day, while 
thus teaching, he suddenly let his voice fall, as if 



APOLLONIUS, THE CHRIST OF PHILOSOPHY. 79 

alarmed, — then resumed his conversation in a lower 
tone, — then paused entirely. After that, advancing a 
few steps, he cried out, w Strike the tyrant, strike ! " 
He stood for some time in silent attention, and then 
declared to the astonished crowd that Domitian had 
that instant been slain. The historian, Dion Cassius, 
who undoubtedly had this story from Philostratus, w 7 ith 
whom he was a fellow-courtier, improves upon it by 
making Apollonius utter the very name of the regicide. 
f Well done, Stephanus ! Courage, Stephanus ! Strike 
the murderer ! Thou hast struck him, hast wounded 
him , hast slain him ! " 

At length, at an age of from eighty to upwards of a 
hundred years, according to different estimates, Apol- 
lonius passed from earth in some mysterious manner. 
His tomb, like that of Moses, was not known. One 
account represents him as having disappeared in the 
temple of Diana, while virgin voices were heard singing, 
w Leave the earth, ascend to heaven ! " 

The teaching of Apollonius w r as in accordance with 
the Pythagorean philosophy, to the truth of which he 
brought the attestation of the sages of India, and of the 
demigod Trophonius. That philosophy inculcated per- 
sonal purity, the restraint of appetite, the contempt of 
wealth and luxury, and the performance of benevolent 
actions. One of its most prominent doctrines was the 
transmigration of souls ; and from this followed the 
comparative unimportance of the event of death. The 
Pythagorean might say, if in a lower sense than the 
Christian, 

" It is not death : what seems so is transition." 



80 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

Pvthairoras declared that he remembered his former 
life, when he was Euphorbus, slain at the siege of Troy. 
The Indian sage Iarchas, whom Apollonius visited, 
claimed to have been once King Ganges, son of the 
river of that name. Apollonius himself, more modestly, 
only asserted that he was once the master of an Egyp- 
tian merchant ship. 

Many of the sayings ascribed to the Tyanean sage 
are full of dignity and beauty. In others the arrogance 
of the sophist is discernible. The following may serve 
as instances. 

In one of the letters ascribed to him, after a complaint 
almost identical with that of Jesus, that " a prophet hath 
no honor in his own country," he adds, "I know well, 
indeed, how good it is for one to hold the whole earth 
for his country, and all men for his brothers and friends, 
since we are all of divine lineage, and come from one 
Father ; and since there is a universal community of 
nature, by which every one, wherever and however he 
may be situated, whether barbarian or Grecian, is still 
always a man." In this noble language we recognize 
Christian sentiments ; but we cannot forget that Phi- 
lostratus lived two centuries after Christ, and when the 
prominent ideas of Christianity had become known 
through every class of society. 

In the Apology of Apollonius, intended to have been 
delivered before Domitian, are these words : w Dost thou 
ask me to which class I belong, to the rich or the poor? 
I answer, to the richest of all ; for that I stand in need 
of nothing, is to me Lydia and the Pactolus." 

After the death of Apollonius, or rather, we should 
say, after the appearance of his biography by Philostra- 



APOLLONIUS, THE CHRIST OF PHILOSOPHY. 81 

tus, divine honors were rendered to him in various 
places, and especially at Tyana. He is said to have 
appeared, after his death or ascension, to the dismay 
and conversion of a young man who denied the immor- 
tality of the soul ; — a story probably copied from the 
account of the conversion of St. Paul. Much later, we 
are told, the Emperor Aurelian beheld the deified phi- 
losopher, commanding him to spare Tyana, which he 
had intended to destroy ; but as this was after the book 
of Philostratus had appeared, it will need no miracle to 
explain it. The relenting thoughts of the conqueror 
might well take, in sleep, the form of the acknowledged 
protector of the condemned city. 

There is an evident resemblance between the wonders 
ascribed to Apollonius and those recorded of Jesus 
Christ. The mysterious birth, foretold by Proteus, and 
heralded by the song of swans, reminds us of the annun- 
ciation, and of the vision of the shepherds at Bethlehem ; 
the control over evil spirits, as in the cases of the Ephe- 
sian beggar, the Athenian youth, and the lamia at 
Corinth ; the restoration to life of the young maiden 
at Rome ; the descent into the under world at Leba- 
dea ; the ascension in the temple of Diana, and the 
vision afforded afterwards for the conversion of an un- 
believer, — all these are imitated, designedly or unde- 
signedly, from the Christian history. His disappearance 
from the presence of Domitian seems copied from inci- 
dents, apparently similar, in the life of Jesus ; as 
when he, "passing through the midst of" his enemies, 
* went his way," or when, after breaking bread with 
the two disciples at Emmaus, he w vanished out of their 
sight." 

6 



82 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

The sage of Tyana was, no doubt, a real person, a 
wandering teacher of the Pythagorean philosophy. He 
may have been the counsellor of Proconsuls and Em- 
perors, may have plotted with Vindex and advised 
Vespasian, though the nearer historians, Tacitus and 
Suetonius, make no mention of him. But we are safe 
in asserting, that if he visited India, the Brahmins with 
whom he conversed did not have the power of floating 
in the air ; and that the marriage feast at Corinth did 
not literally vanish at his reproof. 

Let us compare the accounts of his life with those of 
the Gospels respecting Jesus. Here are two persons, 
who lived at about the same time, and to both of whom 
wonderful works are ascribed. The history of the one 
contains a mass of stories, mythical, if not consciously 
false. Can we infer from this that the history of the 
other is liable to the same charge ? 

No ; for in the first place, a wide difference exists be- 
tween the documentary evidence in the two cases. The 
authority claimed by Philostratus was that of the manu- 
script said to have been written by Damis. For the exist- 
ence of this manuscript we have only the word of Philos- 
tratus ; for his account was published after the death of the 
Empress from whom he claims to have received the docu- 
ment. The story respecting Damis himself is scarcely 
credible. He is said to have joined Apollonius when 
the latter was very young, and to have been still his 
companion, and sent by him on a message from Ephe- 
sus to Rome, when they both must have been at least 
eighty years old. There is strong reason, then, to believe, 
apart from the wonders it relates of Apollonius, that the 
narrative, if it was the genuine work of Damis, was 



APOLLONIUS, THE CHRIST OF PHILOSOPHY. 83 

altered and enlarged by Philostratus in the most reckless 
manner. 

Compare with this the records of Christianity. The 
Gospels are four documents instead of one ; they were 
preserved, not in a single family, but by the whole 
Christian community ; we have them still in our hands, 
in the same condition in which thev were known to the 
early church ; while the original account of Apollonius, 
said to have been written by his companion, is confessedly 
lost ; and we have the Gospels authenticated by a suc- 
cession of witnesses, from the early part of the second 
century, while there is one witness alone, and that a 
much later one, for the original biography of Apollonius. 

In the second place, the words and deeds of Jesus 
were committed, not only to these writings, but to the 
reverent and conscientious memory of chosen men, his 
apostles and their associates, who devoted their lives to 
the work of proclaiming his religion. Even should it 
be proved that the written records were of later date, 
there must have been from the first an unwritten gospel 
in the preaching of the early disciples ; and to this col- 
lected and generally authentic tradition from the eye- 
witnesses, the historians must have resorted as their 
most obvious means of information. Apollonius, on 
the other hand, founded no permanent school. The 
Apollonians, if such a sect existed, passed away so soon, 
and so utterly, that the only trace of their having ever 
been, is in a doubtful assertion of Philostratus. 

In the thircl place, the stories told of Apollonius show 
their falsehood by other traits than their miraculous 
character. The wonders are grotesque, — a speaking 
tree, a weeping lion, tripods moving of their own accords 



84 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

We find also serpents with magic jewels in their heads, 
vases containing the wind and the rain, and stones which 
eagles place in their nests as talismans to protect their 
young from serpents. How do these accounts contrast 
with the majestic exhibitions of power by the Founder 
of the Christian faith ; especially when we remember that 
the biographer of Apollonius had before him the miracles 
of Christ, to copy, and if possible to excel, in those which 
he should ascribe to his own sage ! 

Still further, let any one compare the character of the 
Tyanean philosopher with that of the Man of Nazareth. 
Apollonius is the perfection of a heathen sage, — cold, 
commanding, egotistic, urging on mankind the claims 
of a philosophy, which, with some lofty thoughts, com- 
bines others that are partial, unnatural, or utterly false. 
Jesus of Nazareth has the w r arm heart of a gentle hu- 
man being ; and while he leads his followers in devotion 
to the Father, he lays down his own life for the good of 
mankind, leaving to all following ages the divine exam- 
ple of self-sacrifice. 

In Apollonius, heathen wisdom and classic culture 
did their best — having the life of Jesus, too, before 
them — to produce a counterpart to Him who w spake 
as never man spake." Imperial power and priestly 
influence joined their aid to establish the reputation of 
the teacher of Tyana, and to obscure that of the teacher 
of Nazareth. But the reverent love of mankind turned 
from the cold and shadowy form of philosophic arro- 
gance, and chose the "service of Him whose claims were 
authenticated alike by external proof, and by the beauty 
and holiness of the message that he brought from God 
to man. The legendary life of Apollonius faded from 



APOLLONIUS, THE CHRIST OP PHILOSOPHY. 85 

the memory of mankind at large, and was left as an 
object of transient interest to the few who love to search 
in libraries for what is curious in the records of the past. 
But the Gospel of Christ, opposed in its progress by- 
monarch and priest and sophist, speedily won its way to 
the throne of visible empire, while it established an 
ever-widening dominion over the minds and hearts of 
men. 



86 EVIDENCES OP CHRISTIANITY. 



CHAPTEE V. 
Moral Evidence of Christianity. 

That the Christian religion is one of surpassing moral 
excellence and spiritual beauty and elevation, is generally 
admitted. Its own intrinsic worth presents that evidence 
which appeals to the heart, and without whose reception 
by the heart, all other proof must be in vain. The 
Sermon on the Mount, the Parables, the account of the 
parting conversation of Jesus with his disciples, and 
that of the crucifixion, — these are their own best wit- 
nesses. 

We have, in the preceding "Manual," taken a view 
of the harmony of Christianity with nature, and its 
adaptation to the powers and capacities of man ; of its 
morality, and of the character of its Founder. (Sec- 
tions 5 to 8.) Without repeating what has there been 
said, we shall now present a few thoughts in the same 
connection. 

Christianity claims reception on account of the holi- 
ness of its precepts. If its opponent points to the evils 
that have existed in Christian nations, and to those 
crimes especially that have been wrought in the very 
name of Christianity, — to the usurpations of the Papal 
power, the bloodshed of the Crusades, the tyranny of 
the Inquisition, we have but to turn to the New Testa- 
ment to perceive that none of these evils and crimes are 



. MORAL EVIDENCE OP CHRISTIANITY. 87 

chargeable upon the Gospel. Those evils have existed, 
those crimes have been committed, not in obedience to 
the commands of Christ, but in defiance or in ignorance, 
alike of his precepts and of his spirit. Equally without 
authority from him has been the institution of the mon- 
astery and the convent ; for though he commanded his 
disciples to follow him, it was to a life of active exertion 
for the good of mankind, not to one of lonely meditation, 
having the good of the individual for its only object. 
It is but within the last two centuries that Christians 
have learned, — if they have even yet fully learned, — 
that persecution for opinion's sake is as wrong as it is 
foolish, and that the spirit of their Master requires them 
to triumph over enmity by gentleness, not by force ; 
yet the law on these subjects was given eighteen hun- 
dred years ago, by his sacred lips, when he told his 
followers not to forbid the action of their fellow-disciple 
because he walked not with them, and when he rebuked 
those who would have called down fire upon the Samari- 
tan village. (Mark ix. 38-40 ; Luke ix. 49-56.) 
Thus do the very weaknesses and sins of Christ's disci- 
ples, when compared with the law by which they have 
professed, to be guided, bear witness to its superhuman 
excellence. 

The Christian law is that of perfect purity, in thought 
no less than in word and action ; of impartial justice, of 
universal love. It reveals to us, as the object of devo- 
tion, God, not as another name for nature, like Brah* 
minism and Buddhism in their purest forms, nor only a* 
a Sovereign, like Mohammedanism ; but as " Our Fathei 
in heaven." It presents to us, as the object of our 
love, second only to Him, man, our brother; the hum- 



88 EVIDENCES OP CHRISTIANITY. 

blest of the race, and the most widely separated from 
us, being like ourselves a child of the Universal Father. 

Again, the excellence of Christianity appears in the 
character of its Founder. In Jesus Christ we have the 
perfect exemplification of the law which he gave. Had 
the New Testament been but a code of morals, without 
the light which the character of Jesus sheds upon it, it 
would not have engaged, as it has, the attention and 
reverence of mankind. "Love your enemies," is a 
noble precept; but had it stood alone, men would have 
disregarded it, as difficult to understand, and impossible 
to obey. It was the exemplification of the precept by 
Jesus himself, when on the cross he prayed, "Father, 
forgive them, for they know not what they do," that 
made it at once intelligible and impressive.* And so 
of the whole law which the Savior taught. We know 
what is meant by the love of God and man, because we 
see them illustrated in him. We learn from the scene 
in Gethsemane the spirit in which we should pray, from 
the scene on Calvary that in which we should suffer. 
And not only does the life of Jesus thus make clear to 
us the meaning of his precepts, but showing us the 
divine beauty of virtue, it engages our emotions of ad- 
miration, love, and gratitude, to aid in the fulfilment of 
the duties pointed out. 

We may say more than this. The character of Jesus 

* It is an illustration of the difficulty which the most enlightened 
Christians find, of rising to the full height of their Master's spirit, 
that the author of " Ecce Homo," in the same book which contains 
the beautiful chapter on Forgiveness, endeavors to explain away the 
prayer of Jesus on the cross, as if he had in mind only the Roman 
executioners! Ecce Homo, chap, xxi., page 298. 



MORAL EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 89 

is itself a revelation to mankind of the character of 
God. Heathenism endeavored to represent that which 
is divine by earthly emblems, by images made in forms 
sometimes bestial, sometimes grotesque, sometimes in 
all the beauty and dignity with which Grecian genius 
could invest the human figure. Christianity forbids all 
such representations as unworthy, but it gives us a nobler 
image of the Deity in an exalted human soul. This 
alone can rightly represent God to man. For man is 
made in the image of God, intellectually and morally ; 
and the highest conception we can form of our Creator 
is to take what is noblest and holiest in man, and com- 
bine with it the attribute of infinity. That we may do 
this more worthily, there has been placed before us a 
perfect human being. He possessed that perfection by 
a most intimate union with God. ' " I am in the Father," 
he said, "and the Father in me." (John xiv. 10.) 
How that union was attained, Christians have not agreed 
in conceiving. An interesting view is that of Schleier- 
macher, who maintains that Christ possessed, by especial 
divine gift, a consciousness of the presence of God, so 
entire as to conform his own will in all things to that of 
the Being whom he felt as dwelling within him ; that 
he thus was the crowning miracle of creation, the com- 
pletion of the grand succession of God's works, the 
Perfect Man.* 

It is in consequence of this union of Christ with God, 
that believers are able to attain a more devoted rever- 

* See an article on " Schleiermacher and his View of Christ." in 
the Monthly Religious Magazine for February, 1869, by the author 
of this volume. 



90 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

ence, a more tender love, towards the Almighty, since 
they can contemplate him in Christ. ^ In the purity of 
Jesus we see imaged to us the holiness of God ; in the 
Savior's miracles we discern the power and the mercy 
of Him from whom he came ; above all, in the whole 
life of Jesus, devoted to the rescue of mankind from 
sin, and accomplishing that object even by the death of 
the cross, we have the most vivid representation possible 
of the infinite love of God to man, and of the strength 
of his purpose that his human children should become 
holy. 

In one respect this view of " God in Christ " appears 
more important in this age than ever before. The 
refinement of modern ideas, through the progress of 
science, has done much to weaken our conception of the 
personality of God ; and there is danger that by the 
habit of referring the phenomena of nature to mechani- 
cal and chemical forces, we may cease to recognize the 
living power of God's will ; and that as by reasoning 
we conclude that he can have no emotions that imply 
change and weakness, w r e may be tempted to doubt the 
efficacy of prayer, and even lose the conviction of God's 
love, his justice, and his compassion. But we cannot 
understand the Infinite by contemplating him in one 
aspect alone. In the boundless deep of his nature, 
qualities that seem to us opposed may co-exist, as rivers 
run into the ocean from opposite shores, and find their 
resting-place sufficient to contain them all. If we would 
escape from the coldness of Pantheism, it must be by 
contemplating God as revealed to us in the words of 
Christ, and as imaged forth to us in his tender and ex- 
alted character. 



MORAL EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 91 

Thirdly, the religion of Christ claims our belief, by 
the power it has evinced to nerve and sustain its martyrs. 
The first and greatest of these was the Savior himself. 
The next that died in attestation of his Gospel had learned 
from him to pray for the forgiveness of his enemies. 
(Acts vii. 60.) From that time forward, for near three 
hundred years, Jewish and heathen hatred called the 
church to sustain a succession of persecutions, endured 
with constancy and meekness that well illustrated the 
power of their faith. Men in the feebleness of age, 
like Polycarp, found strength to be firm to the end ; 
philosophers like Justin showed that the life of a student 
had not taken from them the courage to face danger ; and 
women of gentle nurture, like Perpetua, could withstand 
the entreaties of a father, and the unconscious pleading 
of an infant child, alike urging them to save their lives 
by apostasy. 

The constancy of these martyrs shows the power of 
the religion by which they were sustained. In the case 
of the earliest, as of those among the apostles who thus 
suffered death, and of the evangelists who encountered 
the danger of it, their constancy gave the most convinc- 
ing assurance of their faithfulness in the accounts they 
had given of the life and teaching of Jesus. The testi- 
mony of the later martyrs has been invalidated by refer- 
ring to instances in which similar sufferings have been 
endured with similar constancy, in the defence of error. 
Thus in those mutual persecutions of Catholic and Prot- 
estant, which have been the shame of past centuries, 
the victims cannot all have been martyrs for the truth ; 
yet there was no difference in the firmness with which 
they bore their sufferings. Thus Kenan, in his book 



92 EVIDENCES OP CHRISTIANITY. 

on the Acts, gives an interesting account of the sect of 
Babists, in Persia, and the persecutions endured by them 
in our own age. But in all these cases, we may reply, 
the sufferers not only were sustained by their own ardent 
faith, but they had before them the example of the early 
Christian martyrs ; for it is probable that traditions of 
that example had been preserved, even in Persia. We 
desire not, however, to strain this argument too far. 
Let it be enough that it fully proves the sincerity of the 
early Christians, and the power of their religion to sus- 
tain them in the extremity of suffering. 

Yet again, Christianity claims reception from us, for 
the aid it has given in the diffusion of intelligence, the 
advancement of civilization, the improvement of the con- 
dition of mankind. The social evils w T hich yet remain 
are so great that as we look upon them we are apt to 
feel as if nothing had been gained, and the Gospel, as 
respects its influence over human society at large, had 
been a failure. But it is because we see only the pres- 
ent, that we do not realize its immense superiority to the 
heathen past. Much also is to be allowed for a coun- 
teracting jcause, which, but for Christianity, would have 
carried back the world to utter barbarism. This was 
the invasion and conquest of the Roman Empire by the 
wild hordes of northern Europe. Centuries of corrup- 
tion, with luxury, idolatry, and despotism, had so weak- 
ened the manhood of the southern regions, that not even 
the adoption of Christianity could win back for the Em- 
pire more than a transitory splendor ; and the transfer 
of the seat of government to the East, left the Western 
portion the most feebly defended, w r hile it was the most 
strongly attacked. Thus, in the fifth century, the 



MORAL EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 93 

Christian Empire of Rome came to an end. The coun- 
tries that composed it, Italy, France, Spain, and Brit- 
ain, with some regions to the north and the south of 
these, were overwhelmed by a flood of barbarism. 
Science, art, and learning were objects of indifference, 
if not of scorn, to the fierce invaders ; but in the religion 
of the nations they had conquered, they found that 
which could first restrain and then elevate and enlighten 
them. The Christian priests were the civilizers of the 
new barbarism. The monastic institutions, which we 
are apt to regard as monuments alone of folly and indo- 
lence, were providentially made, first, the retreat of 
learning and piety before the barbarian sword, and then 
the central points of missionary effort, to teach the con- 
quering savages alike the arts of this life, and the holy 
doctrines connected with the life to come. Yet it was 
centuries before Europe attained a stage in civilization, 
corresponding to that which it had lost. The influence 
of Christianity, then, though ceaselessly at work, has 
been delayed, for a period of seven hundred years, — 
from the fifth to the twelfth century, — by its contest 
with the barbarism of the northern nations. When, at 
length, civilization prevailed, it was Christianity that 
had won its battle. 

We may discern the power of the Gospel of Christ 
in the removal of evil institutions, by a glance at the 
history of domestic slavery. That hideous system has 
been overthrown in three successive forms, and ever by 
the influence of Christian truth. First, in the classic 
form, the worst of all in one respect, because it gave 
the master the power of life and death. Some progress 
had been made, even under the heathen Emperors, in 



'94 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

favor of humanity to the bondman ; but it was by edicts 
of Constantine that the murder of a slave was placed on 
the same level with that of a freeman, and that the for- 
cible separation of families was forbidden.* By these 
and similar laws, and still more by the influence of 
Christianity on the hearts of individual masters, Roman 
slavery gradually passed away. Then came the lighter 
form of feudal villeinage ; to perish in its turn by the 
advance of a civilization which Christianity guided, and 
in no small degree by the direct interference of Christian 
ministers. w When the dying slaveholder," says Mac- 
aulay, " asked for the sacraments, his spiritual attend- 
ants regularly adjured him, as he loved his soul, to 
emancipate his brethren, for whom Christ had died. So 
successfully had the Church used her formidable ma- 
chinery, that before the Reformation came, she had 
enfranchised almost all the bondmen in the kingdom 
except her own, who, to do her justice, seem to have 
been very tenderly treated." f 

Last came the American form of slavery. We have 
seen this pass away before the storm of civil war ; but 
the war itself would not have taken place but for the 
increasing opposition to the continuance of the slave 
system, and the certainty that the power to maintain it 
against that opposition was gradually passing away. 
"* And though the church has often been angrily charged 
with indifference to the cause of freedom, yet the im- 
pulse of the anti-slavery movement came from Chris- 
tianity. It was from the principles of the Society of 
Friends that the foremost champion and the foremost 

* Penny Cyclopcedia, Art, Slavery. 
t History of England, Chapter I, 



MORAL EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIAITY. 95 

poet among the Abolitionists derived their reverence for 
the rights of man. Christian ministers, Channino: and 
Pollen, and many others, were among the prominent 
advocates of the cause ; and if the defenders of the evil 
institution brought up in its favor some obscure pas- 
sages, principally from the Old Testament, these were 
more than counterbalanced by the plain teaching of 
the Bible, that all men are children of God, destined 
alike to immortality, and that justice and benevolence 
are to be shown to all. Thus for the third time, it was 
Christianity before which slavery gave way. 

It would be interesting to trace the influence of the 
Gospel in other departments of the progress of civiliza- 
tion. But the repeated abolition of slavery may serve 
as a sufficient example. We hope, too, that the subject 
may be presented to the public with a fulness adapted 
to its importance, by the' publication of the Lectures 
delivered recently before the Lowell Institute, on the 
Debt of the World to Christianity, by our friend the 
President of Meadville Theological School. 

It is a great error to suppose that Christianity rests 
alone on outward miracles as evidences of its truth. 
Besides the characteristics of it which have been named, 
there are other proofs of its divine excellence which may 
well be called moral miracles. Its very existence is 
such a miracle, when viewed in connection with its early 
history. That a peasant of Galilee, whom his country- 
men caused to be crucified, should have put down the 
mighty idolatry of Rome, and established the belief in 
his teachings as the religion of civilized mankind, is a 
miracle grander than that he should have raised the 



96 EVIDENCES OP CHRISTIANITY. 

dead. In the words of Coleridge, w Christendom is the 
best proof of Christianity." 

Again, at the present day, the moral and spiritual 
efficacy of Christianity is a constant succession of won- 
ders. Still does Jesus make the blind to see ; for he 
opens the mental eye which sin had darkened, that it 
may discern what is beautiful and glorious in purity, 
peace, justice, and benevolence. Still does he bid the 
lame walk ; for he aids the unsteady feet of the wanderer 
from virtue to re-enter and to pursue her sacred paths. 
Still does he raise the dead, the morally dead, the "dead 
in trespasses and sins," to a better life than had been 
theirs before. Not then alone by visible miracles in 
the distant past, not by voices speaking alone to one 
favored nation, but by testimonies ever recurring, and 
which every willing mind can comprehend, does God 
accredit to us his sacred messenger. 

Argument of Schleiermacher. 

Those disciples of the Transcendental Philosophy who 
have retained their Christian faith, have naturally relied 
rather on arguments of the kind now before us, than on 
the evidence of miracles. It will be our endeavor, in 
what remains of this chapter, to point out the path 
which some of them have pursued, by developing the 
train of thought upon this subject, as presented in vari- 
ous portions of Schleiermacher's great work on w Chris- 
tian Faith," and in the last of his "Discourses on 
Religion." 

Religious systems, this writer observes, are distin- 
guished into the Natural and the Positive. Positive 



MORAL EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 97 

religions are those which claim to have been revealed 
from some superhuman source ; Natural religion, that 
which is authenticated by nature alone. This, however, 
it will be found by universal experience, never exists by 
itself, as the actual faith of any portion of mankind. It 
derives its origin from the positive religions of the world ; 
the process for its attainment being to compare these in 
their highest forms, — the Christian, the Jewish, and 
the Mohammedan, — to leave out whatever is peculiar 
to any one of them, reserving only those great truths in 
which they all unite. 

It follows from this, that Theism, as Natural reli- 
gion is sometimes designated, cannot fairly claim to be 
a rival of Christianity. It is, in fact, only Christianity 
abridged. What it teaches is true, but it is not truth 
which philosophers discovered for themselves. The 
people had it before the philosophers. The part which 
the latter had in its preparation was not that of devel- 
opment, but of mere omission. The truth of Christian- 
ity, then, is acknowledged by its opponents, in regard 
to much that is of most importance in its teachings, as 
the Being and the Unity of God, his Fatherly love, his 
providential care, the future life of man, and his account- 
ableness for his conduct. And these opponents never 
would have attained these truths, had they not been 
contained in those systems of Positive religion, among 
which Christianity is acknowledged by all to hold the 
highest place. 

Claiming thus in behalf of Christianity the honor 
which has been appropriated by Theism, we can, by a 
chain of argument, prove more distinctly the claims of 
our religion to the character of a revelation from above. 



98 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

In the first place, the position is laid down that a 
religious community cannot derive its origin from cir- 
cumstances entirely within the community which preced- 
ed it. To produce a new effect, there must be a new 
cause. A system of religion worn into formalism, and 
from which all living spirit had departed, could not of 
itself break forth into new life, adopt new T doctrines and 
forms, and furnish the impulse to a new activity. 

In the origin of all new systems, then, the establish- 
ment of great religious communities, we must recognize, 
besides preceding circumstances, the working of an 
original personality. The new law comes from a new 
prophet ; or rather, since a new law alone cannot prop- 
erly be called a new religion, and the office of prophet 
is not identical with that of religious founder, the new 
system of faith requires as its producing cause, a per- 
sonage of high endowments, eminently possessed of the 
powers of discovering and communicating truth, and of 
exercising control over his fellow-beings. To the im- 
pulse which raises up and empowers such a personage, 
the term inspiration may not improperly be applied. 

Such has been the origin, so far as we can discern, 
of all great systems of religion. In regard to some 
forms, their date goes back to such distant periods that 
their actual history cannot be traced. And some, as 
the Greek and Roman mythology, present a conglom- 
eration of different previous systems of faith. But his- 
tory, so far as we can trace it, agrees with the principle 
thus reached by transcendental reasoning, that when the 
minds of great masses of men have been stirred to the 
adoption of a new religious system, it was because they 
were under the influence of an inspired leader. 



MORAL EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 99 

But all such leaders, except one, have shown the 
limits of their inspiration by admitting into their systems 
the qualifying influences of space and time. They have 
been local, national, not universal. Brahminism owns 
the sacred river and the sacred mountain of Hindostan. 
Mohammedanism, in its frequent ablutions, marks itself 
as the religion of a warm climate, and calls its votaries 
to pilgrimages which would be impossible to those living 
at a distance from its Arabian birthplace. Judaism is 
confessedly the system of a single people, and a single 
small province ; however, its limitation may be justified 
in view of its being only preliminary to a more full rev- 
elation. Christianity alone is for all men, everywhere ; 
adapted equally to the savage and the sage, the Asiatic 
and the European, not localizing the dwelling of the 
Almighty in a temple or mountain, nor confining his 
worship to any form of sacrifice or order of priesthood. 
The principles it inculcates are the universal ones of 
truth, purity, justice, and benevolence, with trust and 
love towards God. In view of this, its essential char- 
acteristic, Christianity holds of right the position of the 
universal, the absolute religion. Whatever would other- 
wise claim the name of revelation, ceases to merit it in the 
presence of this ; and if the founders of other systems 
may be said in some degree to be inspired, of Christ it 
may be truly said that the Father w giveth not the spirit 
by measure unto him." 

Again, if we look more closely to the great idea of 
the Christian revelation, we find in it what we can trace 
only to a source more than human. That idea is of 
redemption from the power of sin. Our consciousness 
as human beings tells us of want, deficiency, impurity 



100 EVIDENCES OP CHRISTIANITY. 

in ourselves ; our consciousness as Christians tells of 
this want supplied, this deficiency met, this impurity 
changed to purity, by the influence lof our religion. To 
what can we trace such thoughts and feelings ? Not to 
the ordinary powers and influences of human nature ; 
for what is pure can never be introduced by the inter- 
course of the impure. " It must be from a source which 
was pure in itself, — and this sinless source is thus 
identified with the Founder of Christianity. By the 
common rule, of reasoning from effect to cause, we 
trace back the purifying influence of our faith upon our 
own hearts to the pure and holy Savior. For the work 
of redemption in which he leads us, no human source is 
sufficiently exalted ; we must trace it, then, to a divine 
source, recognizing in him one who possessed that per- 
fect sinlessness which marked him as the representative 
of God to man."* 

The thoughts thus presented are in part the same 
which have been offered in an earlier chapter of this 
book, respecting the universality of Christ's teachings, 
and their adaptation to the nature of man. The argu- 
ment of the illustrious German is but a development of 
that process of the heart by which one who has been 
under the dominion of sin recognizes the Gospel as that 
which has brought him deliverance, and rests his faith 
on Christ, because he has experienced his worth as a 
Savior. 

* Schleierraacher, Der Christliche Glaube, and Reden; also 
Strauss, Life of Jesus. Section 148. 



ATTEMPTS TO ALTER OR IMPROVE CHRISTIANITY. 101 



CHAPTER VI. 

Attempts to Alter or Improve Christianity. 

The force of the moral argument for Christianity has 
been felt by many minds, which would have been slow 
to receive the religion on the evidence of miracle. Of 
this class, probably the greater part have, for the sake of 
the internal proof, quieted their own doubts with regard 
to the external. Others, however, have thought that a 
distinction might be made between Christianity as a 
moral system, and Christianity as an historical and super- 
natural religion. The attempt to mark this distinction 
has been made by two persons, eminent alike for char- 
acter and station. 

President Jefferson, in those hours which he found, 
even anions; the cares of state, to hold intercourse with 
the highest thoughts, prepared an arrangement of the 
life and teachings of Jesus, leaving out all that was out- 
wardly miraculous* His biographer says : — 

w The book oftenest chosen for reading for an hour or 
half an hour before going to bed was a collection of 
extracts from the Bible. During the year 1803, while 
Mr. Jefferson was in Washington, 'overwhelmed with 
other business/ he spent two or three nights, ' after 
getting through the evening task of reading the letters 
and papers of the day/* in cutting such passages from 
the evangelists as he believed emanated directly from 



102 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

the lips of the Savior, and he arranged them in an 
octavo volume of forty-six pages. This selection is thus 
described by him to his revolutionary friend, Charles 
Thompson, January 9th, 1816. 

" ' I, too, have made a wee little book from the same 
materials, which I call the Philosophy of Jesus. It is a 
paradigma of his doctrines, made by cutting the texts 
out of the book, and arranging them on the pages of a 
blank book, in a certain order of time or subject. A 
more beautiful or precious morsel of ethics I have never 
seen ; it is a document in proof that I am a real Chris- 
tian, that is to say, a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus, 
very different from the Platonists, who call ?ne infidel 
and themselves Christians and preachers of the Gospel, 
while they draw ,all their characteristic dogmas from 
what its author never said nor saw. They have com- 
pounded from the heathen mysteries a system beyond 
the comprehension of man, of which the great reformer 
of the vicious ethics and deism of the Jews, were he to 
return to earth, would not recognize one feature. If I 
had time I would add to my little book the Greek, Latin, 
and French texts, in columns side by side.' 

"It was in the winter of 1816-17, it is believed, that 
Mr. Jefferson carried out the design last expressed. In 
a handsome morocco-bound volume, labelled on the 
back, ? Morals of Jesus,' he placed the parallel texts in 
four languages." 

"It is remarkable that neither of these collections 
were known to Mr. Jefferson's grandchildren until after 
his death. They then learned from a letter addressed 
to a friend that he was in the habit of reading nightly 
from them before going to bed." 



ATTEMPTS TO ALTER OR IMPROVE CHRISTIANITY. 103 

The above extracts are from Randall's Life of Jefferson, 
Volume III., pages 451, 452. In the Appendix are 
given the Tables of Contents of the two volumes. The 
title of the earlier collection is M The Philosophy of Je- 
sus of Nazareth, extracted from the account of his life 
and doctrines as given by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and 
John. Being an abridgment of the New Testament for 
the use of the Indians, unembarrassed with matters of 
fact or faith beyond the level of their comprehensions." 

There is something deeply interesting in the view thus 
given, of the President, amid the pressing claims of his 
office, caring thus for the spiritual elevation of that race 
which was passing away before the advance of his own ; 
and seeking the means for their improvement in those 
Scriptures whose supernatural authority, it is probable, 
he did not receive. 

More recently, the distinguished East Indian, Ram- 
mohun Roy, published for the benefit of his countrymen 
a compilation which he called " The Precepts of Jesus, 
the Guide to Peace and Happiness." It consisted of 
the teachings of the Savior, extracted from the four 
Gospels, but omitting, as far as possible, the connecting 
narrative. Much interest was excited in England and 
in this country, by what was confidently regarded as the 
conversion of a learned and virtuous heathen, to Chris- 
tianity. Rammohun Roy expressed no disrespect to the 
historical parts of the Scriptures ; but he thought it un- 
necessary and useless to present them to his countrymen, 
conceiving that the miraculous accounts they contained 
would rather excite prejudice than allay it. Whether 
Rammohun Roy himself believed fully in Christianity as 
a divine revelation, is a subject on which opinions have 



104 EVIDENCES OP CHRISTIANITY. 

differed. His intercourse and apparent sympathy for 
years were chiefly with Unitarians ; but after his death, 
he was claimed by some as a convert to the doctrines 
of the Church of England. He had not, however, 
openly renounced the Hindoo religion, and embraced 
the Christian, by receiving baptism, but retained his 
rank as a Brahmin to the last. 

An opinion respecting Jesus, similar to that expressed 
by Mr. Jefferson, appears to be entertained by some of 
the more liberal-minded of the modern Jews. A re- 
markable book was published at Altona in 1853, enti- 
tled " History of Rabbi Jeshua, the son of Joseph, the 
Nazarene, called Jesus Christ " (Geschichte des Rabbi 
Jeschua ben Joszef hanootzri, genannt Jesus Christus). 
The author, a Jewish Rationalist, maintains that Jesus, 
though no worker of miracles, was a wise and good re- 
former, who suffered by an unjust sentence, in conse- 
quence of his patriotic and devout endeavors. He 
claims to be sustained in this opinion by ancient manu- 
scripts to which he has had access ; but fails to give a 
distinct and satisfactory account of their antiquity and 
authority. To the same effect he quotes the language 
of an older Jewish writer, a Rabbi among the Karaites, 
a sect of the Jews who own the authority of the Old 
Testament alone, rejecting the Rabbinical traditions. 
His words are as follows : M Rabbi Jeshua was, accord- 
ing to the opinion of the friends of truth, a wise man, 
pious, righteous, and God-fearing, and shunned what 
was evil. He gave no command nor discourse which 
varied from the written divine law, much less in oppo- 
sition to the teaching of Moses." He goes on to say 
that different doctrines were introduced afterwards by 
the followers of Jesus, and especially by Paul, 



ATTEMPTS TO ALTER OR IMPROVE CHRISTIANITY. 105 

We shall have occasion hereafter to examine the 
credibility of this supposition, in connection with the 
theory of Dr. Baur, which strongly resembles it. The 
question, too, whether it is possible, with fairness and 
consistency, to separate the natural and the supernat- 
ural in the Savior's life and teachings, believing the one 
and rejecting the other, will best be answered after an 
examination of the historical record, and of the evidence 
on which it rests. At present, these various attempts 
in that direction are introduced for the testimony borne 
to the surpassing excellence of the Christian religion, by 
persons who refuse to receive it as a miraculous revela- 
tion. 

It is observable, too, that the approval thus expressed 
is not pronounced upon a mere selection from the words 
of Jesus ; as a modern scholar, searching through the 
idolatrous prayers of the Vedas, may find here and 
there a lofty thought ; but Mr. Jefferson and Rammohun 
Roy took the whole of the Savior's precepts, finding 
nothing in the Gospels to reject except the miracles. 
The approval of the Karaite Rabbi is expressed in words 
not less comprehensive. 

But there are those who argue that however excellent 
the character of Jesus and his precepts may have been, 
and however important the moral revolution which he 
effected in the world, there is no propriety in receiving 
him or his instructions w as a finality." The Gospel, 
according to this view, is a thing of the past ; its work 
was part of that to which all ages have contributed, in 
building up the civilization of the present. Whether 
the principles which Jesus taught were original with 
him or not, and whether he held them with any mixture 



106 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

of error, are now, it may be said, questions of small 
importance. The world has learned what was valuable 
in the lessons of Jesus : what matters it from whom the 
instruction came? Galileo discovered that the earth 
revolves on its axis. We all believe this truth ; but 
who now reads the writings of Galileo, or cares about 
the laborious process by which he may have attained 
the knowledge that is now so familiar ? 

To this we reply, that it is not with the Gospel of 
Christ as it is with the works of discoveries in natural 
science. When the principles they have searched out 
are once made known, the obvious wants of man cause 
them to be employed. Men need food and clothing ; 
they desire the comforts of life, and aspire after its lux- 
uries ; there is no danger then that their knowledge of 
the ways and means of gaining these objects will be un- 
used. But the spiritual wants of man are not so press- 
ing in their claims. It is not enough that men should 
know what is morally right, in order to secure their 
doing it. There must be motives, sanctions accompany- 
ing the law, to insure for it attention and obedience. 
These motives, these sanctions, are found in Christianity, 
considered as of divine revelation. If Jesus had arrived 
at the knowledge of the true principles of virtue by the 
exercise of unaided human powers, if he had enforced 
his precepts only by prudential maxims having applica- 
tion to the present life, then his teachings might have 
been classed with those of other discoverers. But it is 
not so. He taught in the name of God. He claimed 
authority as one whom the Father had sanctified and 
sent. His words are in the accent of command. They 
are not to be assented to as good reasoning, but to be 



ATTEMPTS TO ALTER OR IMPRROVE CHRISTIANITY. 107 

obeyed as laws. And their authority as laws is sub- 
stantiated by the sanctions both of reward and punish- 
ment, and of each of these in the future world as well 
as in this. Nor are these solemn sanctions, nor is this 
voice of authority superfluous, in reference to the class 
of subjects upon which they are employed ; for there are 
so many temptations to do wrong, so many difficulties 
in the way of doing right, that even with all the advan- 
tage we have in being thus taught of God, we are apt 
continually to wander into evil. We cannot dispense 
then with this authority, these threatenings, these prom- 
ises. We need them, as a child needs to be guided, 
instructed, and restrained. 

In the natural sciences mankind have advanced step 
by step, each successful laborer being passed and super- 
seded by his successor. The wonderful and brilliant 
discovery of one year is in familiar use in the next, and 
serves as the foundation for discoveries perhaps more 
wonderful still ; and so the volume which contains its 
first announcement rests unread on the shelves of old 
libraries, and the knowledge which at first was so rare 
and precious, becomes combined yrith the general mass 
of information possessed by the race. But who has 
excelled Jesus of Nazareth? What volume of moral 
instruction has superseded the Gospel ? It is eighteen 
hundred years since the New Testament was written, and 
in every other branch of knowledge men have made 
wonderful advances ; but in the knowledge of God, and 
of their own duty and destiny, that book is still the 
manual of the civilized world. Is it asked if men have 
not gone beyond it ? They have not come up to it. It 
seems to us sometimes as if they had not learned its first 



108 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

lessons. Certainly men in general, in Christian coun- 
tries, are yet far from understanding, applying, and 
exemplifying the Sermon on the Mount, the divine dis- 
course contained in its first few pages. The New Tes- 
tament is not superseded then. We cannot do without 
it. -It is not like those books of a philosophy long since 
thoroughly learned, that we can now lay aside, forget- 
ting even their authors' names, and retaining only the 
principles they have taught us. 

An evidence of the excellence of Christianity may be 
found in the failure of all attempts to improve upon it. We 
have seen already that some have tried to make a selec- 
tion from its teachings, and engage the attention of 
mankind to its moral precepts alone. Others have 
endeavored to go beyond its instructions, and, as in 
secular science one author builds his system on that of 
his predecessor, to construct new religions on the basis 
of the Gospel. This was very early sought after in the 
Gnostic and Manichean systems ; the one an endeavor 
to combine Christianity with principles from the Greek 
philosophy, the other undertaking to reconcile it with 
the teachings of Zoroaster. Those attempted improve- 
ments have passed away, and Christianity remains. 

The Mohammedan system, which we have already 
considered, may be regarded as another endeavor to 
improve on the religion of the Bible. But Mohammed 
knew more of the Old Dispensation than he did of the 
New. He failed entirely to reach the spiritual elevation 
of Christianity ; and by a most unhappy mixture of 
elements in the two religions, each of which was good 
in its own place, he produced that result of narrow big- 
otry, pride, and persecution, which we have already con- 



ATTEMPTS TO ALTER OR IMPROVE CHRISTIANITY. 109 

templated. The Jewish state being a theocracy, Jehovah 
being recognized as its sovereign, idolatry was treason, 
and was punished as such. But Judaism never claimed, 
and never was intended, to be a universal religion. The 
Jews were not a proselyting people. Christianity, 
which is a universal religion, disowns the theocratic 
principle. Its kingdom is not of this world, and its 
Founder taught no lessons of intolerance. Mohammed 
joined together, in unfit alliance, the theocratic principle 
of the Jews, and the Christian claim to universal diffu- 
sion. Hence came a religion of aggression and conquest, 
of pride and aversion to improvement, of intolerance 
and persecution. Thus Mohammedanism not only failed 
as an improvement upon Christianity, but by attempting 
to transcend the local and limited character of Judaism, 
it stained itself with a blot that Judaism never knew. 
The gross impurity of the system, its allowance of po- 
lygamy, its degradation of woman, need but to be men- 
tioned, to show how far it fell short of the religion it 
attempted to supersede. 

Of the modern pretended revelation of Mormonism, 
we shall speak at length, in a separate chapter, the rather 
that its presence and increase render it a subject of great 
importance in itself, as well as in its application to our 
present argument. Two other systems there are, which 
may be deemed continuations or intended improvements 
of the Gospel. One is that of the Roman, Catholic 
church, which, claiming to be still infallibly inspired, 
adds to the teaching of the Scriptures those of the 
Fathers, and especially the decisions of Councils, as of 
equal authority. How has the religion of Jesus Christ 
been improved in the Romish church? Its doctrines, 



110 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

originally simple, have been covered with a burden and a 
shroud of mystery; its ministers, originally unpretend- 
ing men, have been exalted into a hierarchy ; its worship 
has been darkened by a cloud of ceremony, and its moral 
conduct has been stained by the impurities of a Borgia, 
the cruelties of the Inquisition, and the massacre of St. 
Bartholomew. 

An attempt of a different character we may notice 
in the New Jerusalem, or Swedenborgian church. This 
adds to Christianity, as understood by others, discoveries 
or revelations of its own. Swedenborg was a man of 
singular and varied genius, with a mind enriched by 
liberal culture in youth, and afterwards by many years 
of scientific research, and of intercourse with men of 
the highest rank and intelligence. His advantages for 
the acquisition of knowledge appear in strong contrast 
to the youth, the limited education, and the obscure pro- 
vincial sphere, of Jesus. Swedenborg claimed for him- 
self especial divine instruction. This claim, however, 
we have no present occasion to examine ; for we are 
arguing, not against Swedenborgians, but against unbe- 
lievers. But whether he had or had not an extraordinary 
commission from above, we look in vain for any truth 
of importance which the seer of Sweden added to the 
Gospel. The position he claimed was only that of its 
reverent interpreter. That he shed light on some pas- 
sages of the New Testament may well be conceded. 
But the Sermon on the Mount remains still unsurpassed 
for the beauty and holiness of its precepts ; the Lord'a 
Prayer still unequalled for sublimity and comprehensive- 
ness of devotional expression. The learned and vener- 
able sage of Stockholm, with all his great endowments, 



ATTEMPTS TO ALTER OR IMPROVE CHRISTIANITY. Ill 

did but illustrate, not supersede or eclipse, the young 
and uneducated Teacher of Nazareth. 

From the survey we have taken in this and the 
preceding chapters, we come to the following conclu- 
sions : — 

That a revelation of the Divine nature and will was 
needed by mankind ; and that it was needed at the time 
when Christianity appeared, notwithstanding the great 
advancement then attained in philosophy, science, and 
art. 

That the existence of this need, and the adaptation 
of Christianity to supply it, are proved by the eagerness 
with which it was received, and the rapidity with which 
it was extended, notwithstanding the opposition of 
heathen superstition and of imperial power; while 
philosophy in vain endeavored to rival it, and some of 
the noblest philosophers had expressed, in language 
almost prophetic, the deep want of human nature which 
their own systems could not supply, and their aspiration 
for a clearer light. 

That Christianity is not only a good and pure system 
of morals, but that it, and it alone, is a universal reli- 
gion. The teachers of Greece, Persia, India, and China 
have, in the local and temporary limitations of their 
instructions, the stamp of insufficiency, while the doc- 
trine of Christ alone possesses the marks of divine 
perfection, and therefore of divine origin. 

That this is attested to us, among other witnesses, by 
an interesting class of writers, who, while unconvinced 
of the supernatural commission of the Savior, have yet 
turned with admiration to his precepts, acknowledging 



112 EVIDENCES OP CHRISTIANITY. 

them as the sufficient rule of life, and the "guide to 
peace and happiness." 

That Christianity was not only necessary in the age 
when it was given, but is necessary still. Its Founder 
spoke, not like other teachers, but with divine authority, 
and his own personal character constitutes, at once the 
best explanation, and one of the most powerful attrac- 
tions, of the system which he gave. And unlike the 
works of uninspired discoverers, which have been super- 
seded by those of their successors, the Gospel of Christ 
remains, after eighteen centuries, not only unsurpassed, 
but unequalled ; the attempts that have been made to 
build upon it a more advanced religion do but excite our 
wonder, our indignation, or our pity; attempts to im- 
prove it, as by the alleged continuance of inspiration in 
the Romish church, or its alleged recurrence in the 
Swedenborgian, have either signally failed, or have 
succeeded only by bringing into clearer view what was 
in Christianity already ; while minds of the greatest 
power, such as Luther's, have found the noblest exercise 
of that power, not in adding anything to the teachings 
of the Gospel, but in removing the additions which had 
but obscured its original simplicity and beauty. 



MORMONISM. 113 



CHAPTER VII. 

MORMONISM. 

Between the long-established possessions of the Uni- 
ted States and those which lie on the coast of the Pacific, 
extends a vast wilderness, where, till within a few years, 
the foot of civilized man has rarely penetrated, and 
where, even yet, travel is difficult, dangerous, and con- 
fined to a few roads, worn by the steps of that multitude 
who have been led westward by the attractions of the 
Land of Gold. Far in that wilderness is a valley, sin- 
gular in its geographical character, and peopled by sin- 
gular inhabitants. Lofty mountain ranges gird it, their 
highest points covered with perpetual snow. Sharp 
peaks arise, in various fantastic forms. As the traveller 
reaches an eminence towered over by these heights, and 
itself eight thousand feet above the level of the sea, he 
sees before him, beyond the dark fringe of pines, a silver 
lake, expanding in ocean-like magnificence. Suddenly, 
— so a traveller has described it,* — he sees his compan- 
ions fall on their knees ; the air resounds with the min- 
gled noise of joyful shouts, and prayer, and weeping; 
as when, in the East, a company of devout pilgrims 
greet for the first time the blended minarets and domes 
of Jerusalem. The scene is Oriental in many of its 
circumstances. That gleaming lake is like the Dead 
Sea of old Palestine, of bitter waters, wherein no living 
8 



114 EVIDENCES OP CHRISTIANITY. 

thing is found. Those devotees approach a city, holy 
in their view as Jerusalem to the tribes of Israel, for 
there presides one whom they reverence as a prophet of 
the Lord. But to one who is with them, but not of 
them, the thought occurs of another city which stood by 
the Dead Sea in old time, and he recognizes in the city 
of the Western Salt Lake not a new Jerusalem, but a 
second Sodom. 

Pass on beyond the dark pine barrier, and descend 
the shelving ranges, — the successive boundaries from 
age to age of the vast inland sea, which has gradually 
contracted to its present dimensions. Pass on, here by 
springs of salt, there by fountains of boiling water, and 
enter the city. It is of vast extent, but thinly peopled, 
surrounded by fortifications which might resist an at- 
tack of predatory Indians, but which, commanded by 
the surrounding eminences, would be slight protection 
against a civilized assailant. As you proceed, the signs 
of Oriental and of Western life are strangely mingled. 
Here are stores, and warehouses, and shops, bearing on 
their fronts the familiar names that meet us in our 
New England streets ; there rises the wall of a temple, 
designed apparently to rival Solomon's in magnificence, 
but resembling rather some European cathedral. And 
there again, sight of shame and sign of approaching 
doom, appear the buildings of a harem, where some 
man, who has enjoyed from youth the light of civiliza- 
tion and of the Gospel, keeps *his numerous wives. 
Over the portico of the lordliest mansion frowns a bronze 
lion. That, known as the Lion House, is tenanted by 
seventeen or eighteen of the wives of him who reigns in 
this strange community with the blended authority of 



MORMONISM. 115 

Moses and Solomon, — Brigham Young, M the Lion of 
the Lord." 

In order to understand this singular commonwealth, 
it will be necessary for us to go back some years, to 
trace the course of him who gave the first impulse which 
resulted in what we now behold. 

Joseph Smith, the founder of the Mormon Church 
and State, was born in Sharon, Vermont, December 23, 
1805. During his childhood, his parents removed to 
Palmyra, New York. His education was very limited, 
his occupation, that of a farmer. The account given 
by himself, of the manner in w 7 hich he received the sys- 
tem which he taught, is briefly the following : At the 
as;e of fourteen or fifteen he was affected with religious 
feelings, and much disturbed in mind on account of the 
diversity among the sects of Christians. Tearful that, 
in making a choice among them, he might be led into 
error, he withdrew into the woods for the purpose of 
prayer. Here a horror of great darkness fell upon him, 
and he fancied himself on the verge of destruction 
through the malice of some infernal enemy. He ex- 
erted all his powers to implore deliverance, and suddenly 
he saw a pillar of light above his head, brighter than 
the sun, which gradually descended till it rested on him. 
He now saw two personages, who proved to be no other 
than the Eternal Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. 

Not to continue the details of this strange, and, to us, 
revolting narrative, Smith, according to his own ac- 
count, was informed that the American Indians were a 
remnant of ancient Israel, but a degenerate remnant, — 
the relics of a once mighty branch of that sacred stock, 
which had filled this continent with populous cities, flour- 



116 EVIDENCES OP CHRISTIANITY. 

ishing in arts and arms, until the greater part of them 
were, for their unworthiness, destroyed; but that the 
records of their former greatness had been safely depos- 
ited in the earth. He was directed to the spot where 
these treasures were preserved ; and, after several visits 
there, the Book of Mormon, written on plates of gold, 
in characters which Smith styled w reformed Egyptian," 
was taken from its long repose, and delivered to the 
new prophet by angel hands. 

There is a strange mixture of the burlesque with this 
bold blasphemy. With the plates inscribed in this un- 
known language was found a singular instrument, through 
which alone they could be interpreted. This was the 
Urim and Thummim, mentioned in the Holy Writ as 
the means by which communications were made from 
the Divine Guide of the people in ancient times. Much 
have commentators and people been bewildered to know 
in what the Urim and Thummim, "lights and perfec- 
tions," as the words mean, consisted. Smith solved the 
mystery in a way which no commentator probably had 
imagined before. They were a pair of spectacles, M two 
transparent stones, set in the two rims of a bow." This 
wonderful instrument enabled him who wore it to under- 
stand the meaning of the otherwise unknown language 
before him. 

The gold plates found by Smith have not been often 
seen by other eyes than his. Certificates, however, are 
produced, from a few persons, mostly members of 
Smith's own family, and of another by the name of 
Whitmer, who profess to have seen and handled them. 
The testimony of Smith's early associates suggests, 
however, a probable conjecture of their origin. Smith, 



MORMONISM. 117 

it appears, was engaged in youth with a set of men who 
devoted themselves to the business of digging for hidden 
treasure ; the places where treasure was buried he pre- 
tended he could find by means of a stone placed in his 
hat. It is possible that, in some of his digging adven- 
tures^ he may have lighted on some relics of the past, 
sufficient to suggest to his own mind, and to pass off 
upon the minds of others, the fraud which proved so 
successful. This supposition is confirmed by the actual 
discovery, in an ancient mound at Kinderhook, New 
York, of some metal plates inscribed with unknown 
characters, — the work, it has been supposed, of that 
former race, more civilized than the Indians, the traces 
of whose greatness exist in various parts of the continent, 
but chiefly in Mexico and Central America. 

From his gold plates translated, or from some other 
source, Smith produced a volume in the English lan- 
guage, — the Book of Mormon, or Mormon Bible. 
This work, had it been his own composition, would 
have given him a claim to be regarded as not only the 
most daring of religious impostors, but as possessing 
powers of fictitious composition, which, considering his 
scanty education, would border on the miraculous. 
Genius he certainly possessed ; but it did not make 
him the author or the translator of the Book of Mormon. 
That strange production was from another source ; and 
little did its real author imagine the evil use to which 
his composition would be applied. 

The true origin of the Book of Mormon is sufficient- 
ly established. In the year 1809, the Rev, Solomon 
Spalding, a clergyman in the State of New York, who 
had left his profession from feeble health, failed in that 



118 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

business to which he had afterwards given his attention. 
He now removed to New Salem, in Ohio, and sought to 
occupy himself by writing, choosing as the object of his 
undertaking a fictitious tale founded on the Scripture 
history, and on the theory, which was not original even 
with him, that the Indians of North America were de- 
scended from the Israelites of old. The idea of this 
tale was suggested to him by the numerous mounds and 
forts in the neighborhood of his new residence, the relics 
of a former race. He entitled his work, " The Manu- 
script Found." Mormon and his son Moroni were among 
his leading characters, as in the publication which Smith 
professed to have translated from the golden plates. 
In 1812, the manuscript of this work was deposited 
with a bookseller named Patterson, of Pittsburg, Penn- 
sylvania ; but before any arrangement was made for its 
publication, the author died, and the manuscript re- 
mained unclaimed in Patterson's possession. The prin- 
ter lent the manuscript to Sidney Rigdon, a compositor 
in his office, and at the same time a preacher in the 
w Christian Connection." Rigdon was much interested 
in the romance, and repeatedly stated that he had taken 
a copy of it. He afterwards became associated with 
Smith, as one of the principal leaders among the Mor- 
mons. 

In 1839, the widow of Spalding, then residing in 
Monson, Massachusetts, stated these facts in one of the 
newspapers of Boston. . She further declared, that a 
Mormon female preacher, having appointed a meeting 
at New Salem, where her husband had resided, read and 
repeated copious extracts from their sacred book. These 
extracts were immediately recognized by some of those 



M0RM0NISM. 119 

present, as part of the work of Mr. Spalding, which 
they had read or heard in manuscript. Mr. John Spal- 
ding, the brother of the author, was present at the meet- 
ing. Recognizing his brother's work, and amazed and 
afflicted at its perversion to the vile purpose of a religious 
imposture, he rose, and with tears declared the true 
origin of the passages which they had heard. He after- 
wards stated the same on oath ; particularizing that his 
brother's work gave an account of the journey of a 
portion of the Israelites from Jerusalem by land and 
sea, until they arrived in America under the command 
of Nephi and Lehi, and that it also mentioned the La- 
manites. This account of the contents of Mr. Spalding's 
book identifies it with the Book of Mormon. 

Eigdon replied to the statement made by Mr. Spal- 
ding' s widow, vehemently denying its charge against 
himself. Little weight can be attached to this denial ; 
yet it is possible that the manuscript came into the hands 
of Smith through different means. In 1825, Smith was 
employed in the neighborhood of Hartwick, New York, 
where the trunk containing Spalding's manuscripts was 
deposited. It is stated that after the appearance of the 
book of Mormon, and its recognition by Spalding's 
friends, this trunk was examined, and only one manu- 
script found, being that of an earlier attempt to con- 
struct a story of the Indians deriving their origin from 
a colony of the Latins. The other papers had been 
removed, and the remembered manuscript has never 
been recovered.* 

* See the testimony in Mormonism, its Leaders and Designs ; 
by John Hyde, Jr., formerly a Mormon Elder, &c. New York, 
1857. Chapter XI. See also The Mormons, or Latter Day Saints, 



120 EVIDENCES OP CHRISTIANITY. 

The Book of Mormon, thus identified as the work of 
a retired clergyman, is a romance which reflects no little 
credit on the imagination of its author. We condense 
it, as far as possible, in the following abstract. 

In the first year of Zedekiah, king of Judah, when 
the destiny of the nation was darkening towards the 
calamity of the captivity in Babylon, a devout man, 
named Lehi, was moved by the warnings of Jeremiah 
and other prophets, to flee from Jerusalem. He took 
w 7 ith him his four sons and their wives, and travelled 
till they came to the great ocean. Here Nephi, the 
youngest of the sons, by Divine direction, built a vessel, 
in which the whole company embarked. On the voy- 
age, the elder brothers mutiny, and bind Nephi ; but as 
he alone has been instructed from Heaven how to man- 
age the vessel, they are obliged to reinstate him in the 
command. At length they reach land, — this Western 
continent, near two thousand years before its discovery 
by Columbus. After their arrival, Laman and Lemuel, 
the elder brothers, again revolt ; and this division be- 
tween the members of the family becomes perpetuated 
in their descendants, under the names of Lamanites and 
Nephites, — the Nephites being generally obedient and 
virtuous, the Lamanites rebellious and unbelieving. 
Cities arise, kings reign, and prophets exhort. These 
prophets are represented as predicting the coming of 
the Savior ; and in clearer language than that of the 
prophets of the Old Testament. At length the Savior 
himself appears- on this continent, after his ascension, 



London, 1852; pages 31-36. Utah and the Mormons, by Benjamin 
G. Ferris, late Secretary of Utah Territory. New York, 1854:. 



MORMONISM. 121 

as recorded in the New Testament. His teaching is 
described in language copied from the genuine Scriptures. 
He ascends to heaven, and his Gospel is preached among 
the Nephites, and, to -some extent, among the Laman- 
ites. But at length the Nephites " dwindle in unbelief; " 
the infidels gain the ascendency ; the true believers be- 
come extinct, and their last prophet, Mormon, consigns 
to the earth the plates that contain the record of the 
nation, "to be brought forth in due time by the hand of 
the Gentiles." 

We need not trace the steps by which, with the charm 
of this strange romance, and of Smith's bold assertion 
and commanding mind, the Mormon church was or- 
ganized and extended ; or chronicle their successive re- 
movals, from New York to Ohio, and thence to Missouri. 
The rude justice of our border settlements too often 
dispenses with the safeguards of law ; and the Mormons 
were accused of such practices that the feelings p£ the 
people everywhere were excited against them. Among 
the charges brought against them was that of anti- 
slavery ; but if this was true at the time, they soon be- 
came as faithful believers in the " patriarchal institution " 
as any of its advocates could desire ; maintaining that 
the African race was twice doomed, bearing the mark 
of Cain united with the curse of Ham, through the 
marriage of the latter with a descendant of the first 
murderer. 

Another charge was that of a community of wives. 
This they declared to be a calumny, but the later con- 
duct of the sect gives reason to believe that there was, 
even then, some foundation for it. Probably the im- 
prudent language of some among them, who talked 



122 EVIDENCES OP CHRISTIANITY. 

of their determination to possess the whole State of 
Missouri, and suffer none to live near them who were 
not of their church, created more hostility than any 
immoralities. However this may have been, the popular 
rage was aroused. The tale of their expulsion from 
Missouri fills one of the saddest pages in the strange, 
sad history of that State. The Mormons say, in a docu- 
ment published soon after, "Men w T ere shot down like 
wild beasts, or had their brains dashed ; women were 
treated with insult, until they died in the hands of their 
destroyers ; children were killed while pleading for their 
lives. All entreaties were vain and fruitless ; men, 
women, and children alike fell victims to the violence 
and cruelty of these ruffians." 

From Missouri, the Mormons took refuge in Illinois. 
Here they built a town, to which they gave the name of 
Nauvoo, from the Hebrew navah^ or, The Beautiful ; 
established a flourishing community, and built a costly 
temple. But their evil reputation followed them. As- 
sertions were made and believed, that the prophet and 
his chief confederates were guilty of gross impurities, 
deluding their victims by pretended revelations. An 
opposition newspaper was commenced in Nauvoo itself, 
and its first number contained the affidavits of sixteen 
women, charging such crimes on Smith, Rigdon, and 
others. The prophet, acting as Mayor of the city, de- 
stroyed the office and presses of the newspaper, and burnt 
the papers and furniture. This high-handed act aroused 
the State. Smith refused to obey a warrant for his 
arrest. Illinois was in arms, and the Governor took 
the field in person. At his appeal to them, pledging 
the honor of the State for their protection, Joseph and 



MORjIONISM. 123 

his brother Hiram Smith surrendered themselves, the 
former saying, " I am going like a lamb to the slaughter, 
but I am calm as a summer's morning. I have a con- 
science void of offence, and shall die innocent." Hi3 
anticipations were verified. On the 26th of June, 1844, 
the same day on which they had received a visit from 
the Governor, with renewed promises of protection, a 
band of nearly two hundred men, with blackened faces, 
overpowered the small guard at the jail, and murdered 
the prisoners. The assailants completed their own dis- 
honor by brutally insulting the body of their victim. 

Thus died Joseph Smith, the Mohammed of the nine- 
teenth century, if the application of that name to him 
is not a wrong to the Arabian prophet. For the faith 
of Mohammed was at least, as we have already seen, a 
great advance upon the previous idolatry of his coun- 
trymen ; while the doctrine of the Western deceiver 
rejects what is highest and purest in the prevalent reli- 
gion, and degrades its followers to a grovelling mate- 
rialism, and a worse than Asiatic sensuality. We had 
once the privilege of hearing Smith address an audience 
at Washington. He held their attention through a long 
discourse, defending his tenets, and complaining of the 
oppressions suffered by his people in Missouri. He 
was a man of powerful frame, a commanding voice, and 
a ready flow of language. He said little of his own 
claims as a prophet, except to deny the charge of having 
derived the Book of Mormon from Spalding's manu- 
script ; but labored chiefly to conciliate favor to his sect, 
as a harmless and industrious people, whose religion 
differed little from that of other Christians, and who had 
been subjected to gross and cruel persecution. 



124 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

Dismayed by the fall of their leader, and the excite- 
ment in the public mind against themselves, the Mor- 
mons were not without internal difficulty from the 
question of succession to the chieftainship of their sect. 
But all competitors at length gave way to Brigham 
Young, a man possessing much of the .courage and 
ability of Smith. This leader saw the necessity of 
yielding to the storm which had been aroused against 
them in Illinois, and determined on a retreat to the 
regions of the remoter West. It is not within the lim- 
its of our purpose to follow their history further, nor to 
conjecture how the important questions will be settled 
that must arise, as the advancing tide of regular emi- 
gration breaks against the rocky barriers of Utah. 
Only let the hope and purpose be cherished by all who 
love the honor of the American and of the Christian name, 
that there shall be no repetition of such scenes as accom- 
panied the exile of the Mormons from Missouri and 
Illinois. 

Having thus briefly sketched the rise of this singular 
denomination, we have now to remark upon its doc- 
trines and practices. We have brought it as an argu- 
ment for the divine origin of Christianity, that all 
attempts to improve upon it, during the eighteen cen- 
turies of its existence, have been failures. Christianity 
has not been superseded ; it has not been improved. 
If we wish to find it in its best form, we must take it, 
not with the additions that centuries of learned labor 
have made to it, but as it was preached in the streets 
of Jerusalem and the villages of Galilee. And we 
have now brought forward, for comparison with its 



MORMONISM. 125 

original beauty, the latest attempt of human boldness 
to develop from it a superior system. What do we 
find that system to be ? 

The first thing that strikes us in it is, that, insensible 
to the spiritual beauty of the Gospel, it ignores it and 
goes back to the Jewish Law. The Book of Mormon, 
we have seen, is founded on the Old Testament. It 
records the imagined history of Hebrew kings and 
prophets, who continued to a Hebrew race on this con- 
tinent the same institutions which David and Solomon, 
Elijah and Isaiah, administered in ancient Palestine. 
True, the book makes mention of the coming of the 
Savior, both as having been foretold, and as actually 
occurring ; but the admission of this great fact as a 
theological truth does not materially alter the Jewish 
aspect of the system. To one at all acquainted with 
modern Jew r ish literature, the resemblance to it of the 
Book of Mormon is obvious. There is the strongest 
similarity betw r een the modes of thought of the real 
descendants of Abraham, and those of the class who 
claim so strangely, considering some of their practices, 
the name of " Latter Day Saints." 

We are far, indeed, from charging on the modern 
Jews, who faithfully adhere to the religion of their 
ancestors, those gross corruptions, which, developing 
continually, have made the Mormon faith synonymous 
with impiety and impurity. Yet the resemblance of 
the Jewish and Mormon explanations of Scripture is 
extremely striking. Those prophecies of the Old Tes- 
tament which Christians apply in a spiritual manner to 
the establishment of the kingdom of God in the hearts 
of men, the Jews interpret literally, to the building up 



126 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

of a real, substantial kingdom, a Jerusalem of actual 
wood and stone. The Mormons interpret the passages 
in the same way, only with this difference, that their 
Zion is to be in this Western world, while the real Jews 
expect their royal city to be rebuilt in its pristine glory 
on the same spot where David reigned and Solomon 
consecrated the Temple. Such is the spirit of the 
Mormon system. It sees in the glorious promises of 
the Bible assurances of earthly grandeur ; it narrows 
down every noble figure of the old inspiration to a mere 
literal rendering. 

w We believe," says one of their forms of confession, 
"in the literal gathering of Israel, and in the restora- 
tion of the ten tribes, that Zion will be established on 
the Western continent, that Christ will reign personally 
on the earth a thousand years, and that the earth will 
be renewed, and receive its paradisiacal glory." 

" O, ye saints ! " exclaims Orson Pratt, one of their 
leaders, in a sermon, " O, ye saints, when you sleep in 
the grave, don't be afraid that your agricultural pur- 
suits are forever at an end ; don't be fearful that ycu 
will never more get any landed property ; but if you 
are saints, be of good cheer, for when you come up in 
the morning of the resurrection, behold there is a new 
earth." 

The Mormon faith teaches that the Almighty Being 
exists in human form, interpreting literally every passage 
of the Bible which ascribes to him human members or 
human passions. And this error, which might seem in 
itself comparatively harmless, is unhesitatingly carried 
out to results with which we will not defile our pages. 
Suffice it to say, that in Mormonism, the eternity, spir- 



MORMONISM. 127 

ituality and unchangeableness of God are forgotten. 
He is represented as a Being who began to have exist- 
ence, and will have an end ; the representations of him 
fulfilling the words of Scripture, w Thou thoughtest 
that I was altogether such an one as thyself." 

The allowance of polygamy, the most obviously 
offensive peculiarity of Mormonism, was not generally 
proclaimed until after the death of its founder. But 
Smith cannot be acquitted of sanctioning this evil cus- 
tom. An indignant protest was made against the 
charge of such immorality ; but that very protest, 
coupled with the subsequent open avowal of the prac- 
tice, shows that it was a legitimate and not remote 
consequence of the earlier acknowledged principles of 
the sect. Years ago, Martha Brotherton testified that 
Smith had endeavored to induce her to marrv Brighaui 
Young, he having one wife then living ; — that he jus- 
tified the proposal, and told her that he would take the 
responsibility in the sight of Heaven. And the testi- 
mony is not improbable, for polygamy is a natural 
inference from other Mormon doctrines. Setting the 
Old Testament above the New, and their own false 
Testament above both, the allowance of this " patri- 
archal institution " follows of course. Thus the enor- 
mity which is now publicly practised in Utah was com- 
mitted in secret years before, when prudence dictated 
its concealment. 

Eenan, in his work on w The Apostles," remarks of 
Mormonism, " Five hundred years hence, learned pro- 
fessors will seek to prove its divine origin by the mir- 
acle of its establishment." * Before, however, the 

* Page 299 of the translation. 



128 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

growth of the Mormon delusion can fairly be brought 
into comparison with that of Christianity, a longer time 
must elapse, and more important conquests be made, 
than have yet been accomplished by it. The great dif- 
ference, too, must be kept in view, that while the Gos- 
pel inculcated a system of strict self-restraint, the im- 
postor of the West connected his religious doctrines 
with the interests and the pleasures of the present life. 
The advantages of a land speculation, and the more than 
Oriental indulgence of animal passion, were combined 
with tenets in which something that is called religion is 
brought down to the understanding of the ignorant and 
the taste of the depraved. While, then, Christianity is 
not superseded, nor even improved upon by Mormonism, 
the success of that system, should it be more fully at- 
tained than it is at present, will fail to establish its 
truth. The nineteenth century has not, in the religious 
system to which it has given birth on this continent, 
outdone the revelation of the first. 



BABISM. 129 



CHAPTER VIII. 
Babism. 

Still more recently than the appearance of the Mor- 
mon sect in the United States, a form of religious belief 
has arisen in the opposite quarter of the globe, remark- 
able alike from the character of its founder, its sudden 
success, and its tragic extinction, if indeed it can yet be 
considered as extinguished. To this delusion, reference 
has already been made, in connection with Kenan's com- 
parison of the constancy of its martyrs with those of 
Christianity.* In the inquiry which we are now pur- 
suing, — whether Christianity has been excelled by any 
subsequent system, — an examination of Babism naturally 
finds place. 

Seid Ali Mohammed, or Mirza Ali Mohammed, as he 
was afterwards called, was born in Persia, about the 
year 1812. The names given him combined those of 
the prophet and his son-in-law, Ali, whose, memory is 
venerated in Persia beyond that of any but the prophet 
himself; while the titles Seid and Mirza marked him as 
one of the numerous descendants of Mohammed. He 
was, however, born in a private and comparatively 
humble station, and his early education comprised only 
the most common branches of knowledge. Employed 

* The Apostles, pages 299, 300. 

9 



130 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

at first in mercantile pursuits, he forsook them at the 
age of twenty-three, and betook himself to Kerbela, 
regarded as a sacred city, from its containing the tomb 
of the sainted Houssein. Here he remained for five 
years, in the practice of fasting, prayer, and meditation, 
and receiving instruction in a system of Mohammedan 
mysticism, — that of the Sheikhites. 

To understand this system, one must go back to the 
form of the Mohammedan religion established in Persia. 
The Persians are of the Sheah sect, distinguished for the 
reverence in which they hold the memory of Ali, the 
son-in-law, and one of the successors of Mohammed. 
With this prince, certain others are associated in pop- 
ular reverence, ending with Mehdi or Mahdi, the 
"twelfth Imam," who is expected to return to life and 
assume the empire of the world.* The reverence paid 
to these personages resembles that rendered by Roman 
Catholics to the saints. 

About the beginning of the present century, a teacher 
named Sheikh Ahmed founded the school of mysticism 
to which we have referred. He taught that the uni- 
verse emanated from the Supreme Being, and that all 
the good were embodiments of his all-pervading spirit. 
Especially the twelve Imams, the objects of popular 
reverence, were, according to him, personifications of 
the divine attributes, Ali standing at the head of all. 
In this system an inclination towards Pantheism seems 



* A similar superstition among the Druses, with regard to the 
Caliph Hakem, forms the subject of Browning's " Return of the 
Druses." The delusion which the poet was depicting from imagina- 
tion, was at the same time acted out in a more distant land, in larger 
proportions and with a more tragic termination. 



BABISM. 131 

to have been combined, not only with a corrupted Mo- 
hammedanism, but with the ancient Persian tendency 
to believe in emanations and incarnations. It may, 
however, be more favorably regarded, as an attempt 
to give a more spiritual meaning to the popular super- 
stition. 

The seat of Sheikh Ahmed's school was at Kerbela ; 
and there his successor, Sheikh Kazem, taught, when 
the young Ali Mohammed became his pupil. The doc- 
trine of the Sheikhites, with which, probably, even 
thus early, some views of political regeneration w 7 ere 
connected, had become so popular that in the province 
of Irak alone it numbered a hundred thousand adherents. 
The Sheikh appointed naibs, or representatives of him- 
self, for the various provinces, and thus there existed 
throughout the kingdom a formidable force, bound to- 
gether by religious and political association. 

Ali Mohammed soon attracted the attention of his 
fellow-disciples and of the Sheikh himself, by his pure 
character, his austerities and devotions, even by his 
reserve in speech, in connection w T ith the wisdom he 
displayed when he saw fit to break silence. Sheikh 
Kazem would never clearly designate who should be his 
successor. He would say, " He is in the midst of you," 
w You will seek for him and find him ; " and once, when 
Ali Mohammed entered the hall, and took his accustomed 
place near the door, the master suddenly exclaimed, 
?? There he is ! " The words were little thought of at 
the time, but were recalled to memory, when, after 
Sheikh Kazem's death, the majority of his disciples fixed 
on Ali Mohammed as their chief. He received, either 
from an expression of his own, or from that of one of 



132 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

his principal adherents, the name of the Gate'of Truth. 
The word Bab, meaning Gate, thus became his title, 
and furnished a new designation for his political and 
religious partisans. 

The doctrines of the Bab appear to have been an ad- 
vance on those of his predecessor. He taught that the 
Supreme Being comprised in himself all infinite attri- 
butes ; that the law of God was to be obeyed in the 
spirit rather than in the letter ; that nothing which God 
had made was in itself impure ; and that woman is not 
the slave of man, but his equal. The first of these doc- 
trines appears to dethrone the heavenly family of the 
twelve Imams ; the second went against the lifeless 
formalities into which a religion is apt to degenerate ; 
the third was practically applied against the Moham- 
medan prohibition of wine, while the fourth opposed 
the custom of divorce at the pleasure 'of the husband, 
and the whole Oriental system of the seclusion and deg- 
radation of woman. To these tenets, another was added, 
more dwelt on in the new Koran than aught else, — 
that in Ali Mohammed the twelfth Imam had returned 
to life, and that he and his followers were to rule the 
world. 

Instead, however, of seeking or priding himself on 
thesd honors, Ali Mohammed seems to have conducted 
himself with modesty and with prudence. He was 
repeatedly arrested, and subjected to examination, once 
before an assembly of dignitaries, gathered round the 
heir-apparent of Persia, a youth of seventeen, and 
nominally governor of the province. Before this court 
it is said that he appeared with great dignity, making 
no answer to some questions, but declaring himself to 



BABISM. 133 

be the expected Imam. This account, which bears marks 
of being copied from the examination of Jesus before 
the Jewish high priest, is the less credible, as such a 
claim would have led to his immediate condemnation to 
death. As it was, the Persian government acted towards 
him at this time with a lenity hardly to be expected in a 
Mohammedan despotism. For a time he was at large 
under surveillance, and, when in confinement, was 
mostly allowed to receive the numerous visitors who 
sought him. Political events, however, and the rash 
and criminal action of his followers, brought his singu- 
lar career to a bloody close. 

Among the proselytes of his religion was a lady of 
noble birth, called Kourret-oul-Ain — Light of the 
Eyes. To the great displeasure of her relatives, she 
threw aside the veil, worn by all women of respectability 
in the East, and went around the city of Kasvin where 
she dwelt, organizing a branch of the followers of the 
Bab. At length one of her relatives, a Moudjtehid or 
religious officer of the city, having tried all means to 
win her back, pronounced a solemn anathema against 
the Bab and his doctrine. Soon after, as he was going 
to the mosque in the early morning, three of the Babists 
rushed upon him and put him to death. The murderers 
were seized and executed, and Kourret-oul-Ain obliged 
to leave the city. Many of her fellow-believers accom- 
panied her. At the same time disturbances had com- 
menced elsewhere. 

At this critical time the Shah of Persia died (Sep- 
tember 5, 1848). Such an occurrence in a despotism 
is often the signal for anarchy, and such was now the 
case. The prime minister, aware of his own unpopu- 



134 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

larity, fled to Kerbela, where the tomb of the Imam 
Hussein afforded an inviolable sanctuary. The heir- 
apparent was but a youth, and a new ministry had to be 
formed. Among other disturbances of the public peace, 
the Babists burst into insurrection. Kourret-oul-Ain, 
the heroine of Kasvin, entered with her adherents the 
city of Miami, and proclaimed the doctrine of the Bab. 
She was joined by some of the inhabitants, but the 
greater part rose against her, and compelled the insur- 
gents to leave the city. 

A more important outbreak took place in the province 
of Mazanderan, on the southern shore of the Caspian 
Sea. Its leaders were Hadji Mohammed Ali, and 
Moulla Houssein. The latter, a brave man, whose views 
were chiefly political, had been influential in securing 
the spiritual chieftaincy to the Bab, having been first 
designated for it himself; and he now conceded the 
superiority in religious matters to his colleague, bending 
the knee before him, and saluting him as "most high 
lord." They fortified themselves at a place known as 
the tomb of Sheikh Tabersi. Here they repulsed, with 
courage and skill alike remarkable, successive attacks 
made upon them by the Persian forces. 

Meantime, the government of the young Shah had been 
organized, and turned its attention to the suppression of 
the Babist rebellion. Prince Mehdi Kouli Mirza, Gov- 
ernor of Mazanderan, and a near relative of the sove- 
reign % with two other princes, laid siege to Sheikh Taber- 
si, but was driven into disgraceful flight by a sudden sally 
of the besieged. His camp was set on fire, and the 
two princes who accompanied him lost their lives. The 
government bad,, however, the acknowledged head of 



BABISM. 135 

the rebellion, the Bab, in its hands; and, with little 
wisdom, instead of using his influence, or at least con- 
tinuing to hold him as a hostage, they resolved to put 
him to death. Four of his principal adherents had the 
same fate appointed them, unless they would deny their 
master, denounce him as a hypocrite and impostor, and 
spit in his face. Three of them yielded to these dis- 
honorable terms ; among them was Seid Houssein, who 
had been, according to his own declaration, the aman- 
uensis of the Bab in writing his new Koran, but who 
is thought by the author from whom this account is 
derived, to have composed it himself.* The fourth 
sliowed a nobler spirit. When the miserable Seid 
Houssein had cursed his master and offered him the un- 
manly insult, Agha Mohammed Ali kissed his hands 
with the most profound respect, and cried aloud to the 
people with solemn voice, " This is the Gate of the Truth, 
the Imam of Islam." 

The execution, according to the authority just referred 
to, was by shooting ; and for this purpose a Christian 
regiment was employed, lest the religious feelings of 
Mohammedan soldiers should interfere with the work 
assigned them. Agha Mohammed Ali, "with a loud 
and calm voice, repeated fragments of prayers composed 
by his master. The Bab kept silence. His pale and 
handsome face, with black beard and small mustaches, 
his distinguished figure and bearing, his white and deli- 
cate hands, his clothing simple but exquisitely neat, 

* Bab et les Babis, ou le Soulevement Politique et Religieux en 
Perse, de 1845 a 1853. Par Mirza Kazem-Beg. Journal Asiatique, 
6tb series, volumes vii. and viii. The author is Professor and Privy 
Councillor at St. Petersburg. See vol. vii., p. 61. 



136 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

everything finally in his person awoke sympathy and 
compassion/' The Governor and others addressed the 
crowd, speaking of the blood that had been shed in 
various parts of Persia, through the persevering hostility 
of the Babists, especially of the murder of the holy man 
at Kazvin, and the enemy still fortified in Mazanderan. 
The first fire of the soldiers, instead of even wounding 
the Bab, cut the cords by which he was bound. The 
prisoner rushed towards the people, and would probably 
have been rescued under the general impression of a 
miracle, had the executioners been Mohammedans. But 
the Christian soldiers ran forward, and showing to the 
crowd the cord which had been broken, bound their 
prisoner anew. Agha Mohammed Ali was first put to 
death ; afterwards, the master whom he had so faithfully- 
and bravely owned. fe The crowd dispersed in silence, 
but many bore in their hearts germs of hostility against 
the government." This scene took place July 19, 1849. 
At Sheikh Tabersi, Moulla Houssein fell in battle. 
After many strange experiences, and terrible suffering, 
Hadji Mohammed Ali made proposals for peace. Prince 
Mehdi Kouli Mirza, the same who had once so inglori- 
ously fled, promised liberal terms, and sent a horse, 
splendidly caparisoned, for the use of the insurgent 
leader ; but when the latter, with his attendants, entered 
the camp, they were attacked and overpowered, many 
slaughtered on the spot, and others more deliberately 
tortured to death. Hadji Mohammed Ali, and five 
others, were publicly executed at the capital of the 
province. Another leader, Moulla Mohammed Ali, 
who was defending Zengan, was owned as successor of 
the Bab. 



BABISM. 137 

Meantime the war continued in other parts of Persia, 
but we cannot enter into its details ; the government 
made efforts at conciliation, but the treachery and cruelty- 
displayed in Mazanderan had destroyed all faith in their 
offers ; the strife was desperate, and when the few sur- 
vivors of the siege of Zengan were brought to the capi- 
tal, it was said that each of them had cost the kingdom 
fifteen hundred lives. 

Persecution raged for a time, and then subsided; a 
year and a half of peace succeeded, but it was interrupt- 
ed by a new crime. As the Shah was going forth to 
hunt, he was fired upon by several Babists, and wounded, 
though not dangerously ; this treasonable act aroused 
again the vengeance of the government. The Babists 

o o o 

were sought out, not only in the capital, but throughout 
the kingdom, and put to death, enduring torture with 
heroic constancy. Kourret-oul-Ain, the heroine of 
Kasvin, was privately executed. These appalling scenes 
took place in the autumn of 1852. 

In various respects, the history of Mirza AH Moham- 
med, surnamed the Bab, presents startling resemblances 
to that of the Savior. Claiming descent from an ancient 
prophet king, he was yet, like Jesus, born in a lowly 
station ; still he was regarded by his followers as the 
sovereign of his nation and of mankind, whose advent 
had been long foretold and ardently expected. After 
leading a life of purity, and uttering words of wisdom, 
he was put to death, through the hostility of his own 
government, but by the hands of foreign soldiers ; and, 
before his execution, he was denied by some of his most 
prominent followers ; nay, the very form of contumely 
with which they were compelled to treat him, was the 



138 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

same which had been used towards the Savior in the hall 
of the high priest. 

It is high honor for a teacher of wisdom thus to bear 
in his own history a resemblance to that of the Redeem- 
er ; and we would fain believe that Mirza Ali Moham- 
med was worthy of the distinction. But we cannot for- 
get that the claim was made for him, that he was " the 
Gate of Truth, the Imam of Islam," the subject of 
ancient prophecy, the worker of present miracles, and 
the destined possessor of universal empire. How far 
he himself advanced these claims, it is impossible to 
decide, since the accounts differ widely ; but his acqui- 
escence in them is implied in his whole history. A 
public denial of his supposed supernatural commission 
would not only have conciliated the government and 
saved his own life, but, by weakening the rebellion, 
would have saved the lives of thousands more. His 
silence proved that he accepted the honors rendered him ; 
his martyrdom proves that he believed them to be his 
due. That in this belief he was deluded, needs no other 
evidence than his own death and the extermination of 
his party. 

He was, then, we judge., not consciously an impostor, 
but a sincere and amiable, yet deluded believer in his 
own divine commission. Perhaps there was truth in 
the account given by some, that as he spent much time 
in prayer on the roof of his house, exposed to the rays 
of the sun, and the burning wind of that climate, a dis- 
ease of the brain had part in his self-deception.* He 
appears, too, rather as the nominal and imaginary , than 

* Journal Asiatique, yoL vii., page 337. 



BABISM. 139 

as the real head of his party. Its governing spirit seems 
rather to have been Moulla Houssein Bouchroui, the 
gallant defender of Sheikh Tabersi ; a warrior and poli- 
tician, who probably believed more in his own good 
sword than in any prophet. He nominated Ali Mo- 
hammed to the spiritual chieftainship, reserving to him- 
self only the title of his naib or vicar, and acting with 
the utmost energy to extend the sect. Seid Houssein, 
too, who saved his life by abjuring and insulting his 
master, is supposed by the authority before us to have 
been the real author of his Koran. It is possible that 
thus the quiet and dreamy enthusiast was but a tool in 
the hands of men of more practical ability, but less 
purity of character, than himself. 

Even in acknowledging that purity of character, we 
must remember that Ali Mohammed was, through nearly 
his whole life after assuming the leadership, either a 
prisoner, or constantly watched by the servants of the 
government. He could not take part, personally, in 
the insurrection of his party. That their outbreak was 
marked not only by deeds of courage, but by acts of 
assassination, is a reproach to the religious teaching they 
had received. We hear of no such deeds in the early 
history of Christianity. The resemblance between the 
Persian teacher and the Man of Nazareth would have 
been more near, had Jesus commanded Peter to draw 
his sword, instead of directing him to sheathe it, and 
had he committed the task to Judas to write down his 
law. 

While we admit, too, the elevation of sentiment ap- 
parent in some of the doctrines of Babism, we cannot 
forget that these are derived, by direct descent, from the 



140 EVIDENCES OP CHRISTIANITY. 

Gospel. It is well remarked by our historian, that if 
Mohammedanism is regarded as a schismatic form of 
Christianity, Babism may be considered a purified branch 
of that schism. The constant intercourse, too, of Persia 
with Christian nations, the existence of large bodies of 
Christians, especially the Nestorians, within the king- 
dom, and the mystical philosophy of the Sooffees, de- 
rived probably from Christianity in a former age, all 
contributed to prepare the way for that sect, and that 
instructor, whose brief history adds a chapter of mourn- 
ful interest to the records of a land once foremost 
among the nations. 

The enemies of the Babists have ascribed to them, 
probably with great exaggeration, the preaching of 
doctrines subversive of morality. While we pay no 
attention to such charges, we certainly find in the Ori- 
ental religion of the nineteenth century, as we have 
found in the American, nothing in character or in doc- 
trine to supersede the Christian system, or eclipse the 
glory of its Founder. 



MIRACLES. 141 



CHAPTER IX. 
Miracles* 

In treatises upon the Evidences of Christianity in 
general, the subject of miracles has held the foremost 
place. Around this, indeed, the other portions of the 
argument have centred ; the genuineness and authentici- 
ty of the documents being objects of attention, chiefly 
because it is on their testimony that the miracles rest, 
while, the suiferings of martyrs are brought forward to 
prove the sincerity of the witnesses to these miraculous 
accounts, and prophecies with their fulfilment are but 
miracles in another form. Nay, the moral excellence 
of Christianity, and the correctness and elevation of its 
views respecting God and man, are urged not only for 
their intrinsic worth, or to win love and admiration 
to the religion, but as moral miracles which could not 
have existed but for a special divine interposition. 
Miracle has thus been the very centre, we might almost 
say the centre and circumference, of Christian Evidences. 

And yet there is at the present day a very general 
tendency to depreciate miraculous evidence. This ten- 
dency is not confined to sceptical writers ; but many 
who receive the miracles as facts, still regard them as 
of no great importance when viewed as evidence. Thus 
Schleiermacher argues that the miracles were not the 
means of converting the Jews in the age of Christ, who 



142 EVIDENCES OP CHRISTIANITY. 

witnessed them ; still less, therefore, can they be such 
to us who have to receive them through a long line of 
successive writers. It would be easy, were it necessary, 
to name , eminent living theologians, who represent the 
miracles as unimportant with regard to the proof they 
afford, or argue that it is inexpedient to adduce them in 
evidence ; because the tendency of the age, on account 
of the discoveries of science, is to discredit all statements 
of that kind. 

We may take it for granted that those who use such 
language, mean by miracles, only the outward acts re- 
corded as having been performed by Jesus and other 
teachers, not including under that name such moral 
miracles as are to be found in the excellence of Christ's 
teaching and character, and the providential protection 
extended over the Jewish religion. Even as thus limited, 
however, the objection against urging the testimony of 
miracles suggests various observations. 

In the first place, the miracles cannot be ignored. 
To say nothing of the Old Testament, the Gospels and 
Acts are full of them. From the annunciation to the 
ascension, the life of Jesus is miraculous. If such 
narratives do not strengthen our faith in the religion, 
they weaken it; if not proofs of its truth, they are 
burdens upon it. 

They are burdens, however, that must be borne, if 
we take the religion as it comes to us. If we make it 
over again to suit our own taste, by the method of 
Strauss, Eenan, or any others, we can, indeed, leave 
out the miracles, but consistency will oblige us to leave 
out much beside. The* prayer of Jesus on the cross 
comes to us on similar authority to that which tells us 



MIRACLES. 143 

of his resurrection, but in smaller proportion ; for all 
the Gospels testify to the latter, while Luke alone gives 
witness to the former. If, then, the miracles are an 
inseparable part of the narrative, we are not at liberty, 
if we would be candid and consistent, to put them out 
of sight, and try to commend Christianity by reasoning 
which seems to imply that these stories are alike incredi- 
ble and unimportant. And if God saw fit to authenti- 
cate the revelation which he gave, by deeds of divine 
power, we have no right to lower its claims, and suppress 
part of its credentials, in deference to any prevalent 
spirit of scientific scepticism. 

Let it be observed, however, that no intelligent advo- 
cate of miracles maintains that they can prove a religion 
by themselves alone. The system must also be worthy 
of such proof. If a religion was proclaimed which 
taught doctrines or inculcated practices unworthy of 
God, as, for instance, the custom of human sacrifices, 
no miraculous evidence ought to make us believe it. 
We should rather, if all other expedients failed, go back 
to the refuge of the Pharisees, and say that the miracles 
were wrought by the prince of the devils ; and the reply 
which Jesus made, "How can Satan cast out Satan?" 
would not be applicable to such a case ; for the religion 
being satanic, the wonders that upheld it might well be 
satanic too. 

To render a miracle credible, or susceptible of being 
believed upon evidence, there must be first a sufficient 
occasion for it. Such is the rule of nature, recognized 
by Horace in its application to poetry : 

"Nee deus intersit, nisi dignus vindice nodus 
Incident." Ars Poetica, 1. 191, 192, 

"Let not a God appear, unless the occasion be worthy," 



144 EVIDENCES OP CHRISTIANITY. 

Thus far in the history of the human race, there ap- 
pears to be but one subject with regard to which miracles 
are presented, which can be recognized as well authen- 
ticated. That subject is religion, the purpose of the 
miracles being to give evidence to communications of 
God's nature and will to man. And we can easily see 
that this subject, above all others, presents that character 
which the rule above stated requires. For the attain- 
ments of art and science, human research might suffice ; 
but knowledge with regard to the spiritual world can 
only be communicated from that world ; and, while thus 
beyond man's attainment except by revelation, it is of 
the greatest practical importance to him, as informing 
him of the ground and obligation of duty, of his con- 
nection with his Creator, and his destiny beyond the 
grave. Here, and here alone, since the creation of 
mankind, appears to be the fit occasion for a divine 
intervention. 

There are those indeed, who, believing in the mira- 
cles of Christianity, take a different view respecting them. 
They hold that the spiritual world is very near us, and 
that intercourse between its inhabitants and those who 
are still in the flesh, is not so uncommon as has been 
stated above. On this view, the miracles recorded in 
the Bible are but the most distinguished and important 
instances of a communication between the natural and 
the spiritual worlds, which, if not constantly, is at least 
even now occasionally taking place. Such was the 
universal opinion in past ages. It then displayed itself 
in the belief in charms and omens, magic and witchcraft. 
It was a necessary part of this belief, that intercourse 
with the spiritual world, if sometimes allowable, was in 



MIRACLES. 145 

other instances deeply criminal ; hence arose probably 
many actions of real criminality, in those who endeav- 
ored to gratify their malignant passions by the aid of 
demons ; hence, too, originated those horrible cruelties, 
which not only threw a stain on the early history of 
New England, but blackened more deeply the records 
of every country in Europe. The recollection of these 
awful effects of delusion should render us extremely 
careful not to admit, without the most convincing evi- 
dence, the belief in intercourse with the spiritual world 
as it has been revived in the present age. 

Yet if any should Jbe convinced, not only that the 
wonders of modern spiritualism are amply attested, but 
that no natural force, whether known or undiscovered, 
can possibly have produced them, these wonders may 
still, we conceive, be reconciled with the rule already 
given. In conformity to that rule, they would become 
important if there was ground to consider them the 
credentials of a new revelation ; and if either now or in 
future they should be accompanied by statements of 
faith, whose character indicated a divine source, the 
signs themselves will command an assent which has not 
yet been given, however abundant the witnesses to their 
occurrence. It would then appear that in the present 
age a communication has been opened anew between the 
world of matter and the world of spirit ; and for the 
same great purpose for which it was opened in the days 
when Christ was on earth, — the authentication of a 
message from on high. 

This, we have said, appears to have been the only 
purpose of miraculous interposition since the creation of 
mankind. That creation itself was a series of miracles, 
10 



146 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

Geology affords abundant evidence ; for it shows that 
after long periods, successive forms of plants, and suc- 
cessive races of animals appeared for the first time ; nor 
does it, in the opinion of such naturalists as Professor 
Agassiz, confirm the w development theory," that animals 
were formed by gradual change from others, the first 
animals from plants, and these from inorganic matter. 
There must, then, have been successive creations ; that 
is, successive miracles. The last of these, as witnessed 
by Geology, was the creation of man. In the view of 
Schleiermacher, the mission of Christ was also a crea- 
tion, the creation of what the world had not before seen, 
a perfect man, endowed with a consciousness of the 
Divine presence, which preserved him from, all sin, and 
exalted him so highly, that miracle was to him only 
the natural exertion of his wonderful powers. But this 
view, however interesting, is not necessary to bring the 
divine action in revelation into harmony with that in 
creation. Both show that the Almighty does not leave 
the laws of nature to operate alone ; that he regards and 
superintends his works ; and that, regular as is his con- 
stant operation, he has not precluded himself from 
occasional more visible manifestation. 

Again, without the miraculous element in Christianity, 
we should be deprived in a great degree of the evidence 
it affords of the love of our Heavenly Father. If Jesus 
derived the instructions he communicated from his own 
unaided wisdom, if he had no authority but that of a 
virtuous reformer, and wrought no wonders but those 
which the powers of nature would enable any one to 
perform, then we have no message from on high; we 
lose the proof which that message would have given us, 



MIRACLES. 147 

that the Ruler of nature is our Friend • and Father. 
Prayer to him has not then the encouragement it would 
derive from the assurance that he is willing to hear us. 
If nature is governed by inflexible laws alone, then there 
is truth in that reasoning which tells us that it is in vain 
to pray, for prayer can have no effect upon the Divine 
dealings ; but if we know that the Ruler of all once gave 
back, at the prayer of Jesus, the spirit of Lazarus to 
the frame it had forsaken, then we know that there is a 
personal God ; that he hears the prayers of his servants ; 
and we are encouraged to hope that he will answer them, 
though not now by miracle, yet by the dealing of his 
providence. It is the miracles, therefore, that secure us 
from a cheerless Pantheism, assure us of the presence 
of a loving Father, and encourage us to pray to him, 
not as an unnatural and false device for exciting our own 
feelings, but with the simple faith that he hears our 
prayers and will answer them. 

Not only, then, do we regard miracle as inseparable 
from Christianity, but we do not desire to separate it. 
We count it, not as a burden to the religion, but as an 
important part of it, not only accrediting the holy Mes- 
senger, but giving the assurance of paternal interest on 
the part of Him from whom he came. Miracle has 
been called the seal of revelation ; it is more ; it is the 
signature of the Living God, and w T e recognize in it the 
handwriting of our Father. 

We have now to examine the views with regard to 
miracle, taken by the most prominent of its recent op- 
ponents, Strauss, Parker, and Renan. 



148 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 



D. F. Strauss. 

The explanation given by Dr. Strauss of the manner 
in which the Gospels came to be written, is the follow- 
ing : There lived in Judea, eighteen hundred years ago, 
a man named Jesus, of whom very little authentic in- 
formation has -reached us. It is probable that he was 
a virtuous man, who, endeavoring to reform abuses, 
incurred the displeasure of those in power among his 
countrymen, was by them delivered up to the Romans, 
and was crucified. He neither wrought miracles while 
living, nor rose from the dead. His disciples, however, 
believed him to have been sent by God, and propagated 
this belief throughout the civilized world. Stories were 
told respecting him, and these, as they passed from 
mouth to mouth, among his wondering disciples, became 
magnified and multiplied, adorned with supernatural 
accompaniments, and with marks of superhuman mag- 
nanimity. One prolific source of these stories was the 
Old Testament prophecies ; for whatever had there been 
predicted of a great deliverer to come, the followers of 
Jesus fancied must have been fulfilled in their master ; 
and from the thought that it must have been fulfilled, 
the next step was to. assert that it had been fulfilled. 

From this mass of stories, circulating in the early 
Christian community, the writers of the first three Gos- 
pels, who were not, however, the persons whose names 
they bear, composed their histories, in good faith, believ- 
ing that the tales they recorded were true. The Gospel 
ascribed to John, Strauss conceives to have been writ- 
ten at a later period than the rest, by some disciple who 



MIRACLES. 149 

had derived his knowledge of Christianity through the 
medium of others, from the apostle John, to whom the 
author intended that it should be ascribed ; that this au- 
thor had a high reverence for the memory of the apostle, 
and desired, as far as possible, to exalt him ; that he was, 
also, deeply imbued with the peculiarities of the Alexan- 
drian school, which appear not only in his introduction, 
but in the language ascribed by him to John the Baptist, 
and to Christ. This writer, according to Dr. Strauss, 
is much less trustworthy than the other Evangelists ; the 
conversation with Nicodemus is a philosophical myth, or 
rather, in plain terms, a fiction, even to the very existence 
of that person ; the raising of Lazarus equally fictitious ; 
and the conversations held by our Savior with his apos- 
tles, as recorded by this writer, deserving of no confidence. 
Strauss, indeed, modified these views greatly in his third 
edition ; but the concessions which he then made, fatal 
as they threatened to be to his own theory, were ex- 
plicitly recalled in the fourth. 

It will be noticed that this bold theory throws doubt, 
not upon the miracles alone. Those incidents in the life 
of Christ which are marked by anything of peculiar mag- 
nanimity or piety, — whatever appears as the fulfilment 
of any ancient prophecy, — whatever parable or precept 
resembles at all what is recorded of other teachers, or 
what the Jews would naturally expect of their Mes- 
siah, — all these come under suspicion of being the prod- 
ucts of that most fertile spirit of invention with which 
the early Christians, if we are to believe this writer, made 
for themselves a leader, to account for their own other- 
wise unaccountable existence. The touching expressions 
of Jesus on the cross are considered as invented for him 



150 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

scarce less than the exhibition of divine power in the rais- 
ing of Lazarus. Nothing, in fact, remains to us of the 
Founder of Christianity, from the analysis of this writer, 
but the shadow of one who was executed by crucifixion, 
in Judea, and who was, probably, a virtuous teacher and 
reformer. 

We remark upon this ingenious and daring theory, 
that it is not the result of impartial examination into the 
evidence of the New Testament history. It is an effort 
to reach a conclusion which had been already determined 
on. Strauss sets out with laying down the principle, 
derived from his philosophical opinions, that a miraculous 
revelation is an impossible thing. Ranking confessedly 
with the " extreme left," or ultra portion of the Hegelian 
school, Strauss, as a matter of philosophy antecedent to 
historical investigation, denies the possibility of miracles, 
and the doctrine of an individual resurrection. w A life, 
beyond the grave," he says," is the last enemy which 
speculative criticism has to oppose, and if possible, to 
vanquish."* "When, in the first place, a solution of 
the difficulties which I find in the biblical history, satis- 
factory to myself, is put before me; and when, second- 
ly, a solution of the philosophical views which I have 
against the possibility of a miracle, then will I allow my- 
self to be convinced." " A miraculous operation upon 
natural objects, or products of art, — as turning w r ater 
into wine, or multiplication of loaves, — admits of no 
possible explanation. Even the conception of such a pos- 
sibility is so far out of the question, that I must lose my 
senses, before I could receive any thing of the kind." f 

* Christliche Glaubenslebre, ii. 739. 

t Streitschriften, Heft ill. 18, 155. See Dr. Beard's Voices of 
the Church, pp. 21, 33. 



MIRACLES. 151 

To some, probably, the very fact that this author, 
supposed to be an impartial judge, has decided against 
the miraculous character of Christianity, may have had 
influence enough to unsettle their belief. Let such ob- 
serve that he comes to his task with a foregone con- 
clusion. Who could be admitted as a juror, with the 
declaration upon his lips that he must lose his senses 
before he could believe in the innocence of the prisoner 
he is to try ? 

In the next place, we have, as will be shown in a 
subsequent chapter, the evidence of a series of writers, 
extending back to the very times of the apostles, to the 
authenticity of the Gospels, as having been written 
by persons who, as one of them expresses it, "had per- 
fect understanding of all things, from the very first." 
(Luke i. 3.) 

Thirdly, these Gospels stand not alone. Strauss 
himself admits distinctly the testimony of the Acts, and 
the Epistles, as proving that the apostles believed in 
the resurrection of their Master, the greatest miracle of 
Christianity. His admissions here, are in the following 
words. They are of great importance, as the unwilling 
testimony of a most competent judge, alike to the au- 
thority of the documents referred to, and to the belief 
of the earliest Christians in the resurrection of their 
Lord. 

"From the Epistles of Paul, and the Acts, it is cer- 
tain that the apostles themselves had the persuasion, 
that they had seen the Arisen.'' (Leben Jesu, vol. 
ii. p. 652, first edition. Translation, vol. iii. p. 365.) 

"For the rest, the passage from the First Epistle 
to the Corinthians is not hereby weakened, which, un- 



152 EVIDENCES OP CHRISTIANITY. 

doubtedly genuine, was written about the year 59 after 
Christ, therefore not thirty years after his resurrection. 
Upon this information, we must admit, that many mem- 
bers of the first community, still living at the time of 
the composition of that Epistle, particularly the apos- 
tles, were persuaded that they had witnessed appear- 
ances of the risen Christ." (Ibid., vol. ii. p. 629. 
Translation, iii. 345.) 

Strauss supposes the apostles self-deceived, through 
the excited state of their minds. But if we cannot take 
their own evidence with regard to what themselves had 
seen, it is hard to say what possible evidence would con- 
vince us of the fact to which they testify. 

Fourthly, the time that elasped between the person- 
al ministry of Christ and the writing of the Gospels, is 
utterly too short to allow such a growth of myths, tra- 
ditions, or marvellous stories, as this theory requires. 
Such stories are of slow growth. In the cases which 
this author quotes as similar, hundreds of years elapsed 
before the facts of history became clothed with the fairy 
garb of popular tradition. Yet he would have us believe 
that in about thirtyyears from the death of Jesus, while 
many of those who had seen and heard him must have 
been yet living, the true idea of him had been com- 
pletely supplanted in the minds of men, by that of a be- 
ing scarce less different from him in moral than in super- 
natural greatness. It is seventy years since Washing- 
ton ceased to breathe. Is his life, — idolized as his mem- 
ory is amongst us, — is his life so obscured by popular 
traditions that we cannot depend upon the information 
we receive concerning it ? 

But in our view the most convincing reply to the 



MIRACLES. 153 

fancy of the German theorist is to be drawn from the 
perfections of our Lord's character, and of the religion 
which he gave. This subject we have already contem- 
plated. We have seen how perfect in every moral grace, 
how far bevond all other instructors of mankind, was 
the character of him who appeared as the delegate of 
the Father, and the example of men. The religion, 
too, which he gave, has stood for ages the test of hostile 
criticism, and of rivalship with the best efforts of human 
genius ; yet it is unsurpassed, unvanquished, unequalled. 
And this holy life, this perfect system, if we are to be- 
lieve Dr. Strauss, were not even the invention of an 
artful mind. They grew by chance, — the material fur- 
nished piecemeal by the popular fancies of Jews and 
early Christians, — and put together without design or 
art, yet forming, when combined, the object of admira- 
tion to the world, the aim of vain endeavor to excel 
or equal, through centuries of the highest civilization. 
When we can believe of some noble ship, w T hose pro- 
portions exhibit the perfection of naval architecture, 
that it was put together in mere sport by untaught 
rustics, from driftwood which they had gathered from 
the banks of a stream, then may we believe that the 
divine portraiture of the Savior in the Gospels was the 
combination of unfounded popular fancies, and that his 
holy law, of purity, humility, peace, and love came 
from no higher source than the imagination of a sect 
which sprung up by a strange chance in narrow-minded 
Galilee, lascivious Corinth, and blood-stained Rome. 



154 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY, 



Theodore Parker. 

The memory of this eminent man is held in respect 
among us, well merited by his great talents, his exten- 
sive learning, and especially by his services in the cause 
of freedom. But we have now to examine, not the 
character of the individual, but the views he expressed 
on the subject of the Christian miracles ; and we have 
frequent occasion to guard ourselves against being led 
into error by the authority of popular names. 

The work of Mr. Parker to which we shall particu- 
larly refer, is his volume entitled K A Discourse of Mat- 
ters pertaining to Religion/' This, though written at 
a comparatively early period of his course, discusses the 
subject in question more fully than any of his later 
writings ; and if his opinions were afterwards modified, 
it was by receding still further from Christianity as 
commonly held. 

The w Discourse " exhibits great learning and much 
ingenuity, and in many passages gives evidence of an 
ability to comprehend and appreciate the beauty of holi- 
ness, as it is presented in the life and the precepts of 
Christ. The author delineates the various forms in 
which, as he conceives, the religious sentiment has 
developed itself, as Fetichism, Idolatry, Monotheism — 
following in this the arrangement of Comte. Of these 
forms the last is the noblest ; and he considers Chris- 
tianity, as it was proclaimed and exemplified by Jesus 
himself, as the pure or absolute system of Monotheism. 
Christianity, therefore, is true ; not on the ground of its 
alleged miracles, but on its internal evidence. This is, 



MIRACLES. 155 

he argues, the proper test, moral truth commending 
itself to the mind in a way similar to mathematical truth ; 
miracles, therefore, are superfluous at best, and the evi- 
dence on which those of Christianity are sustained, he 
considers essentially defective. 

There is a wide difference between the system of this 
writer and that of Strauss , with which it is probably 
often confounded. In reference to Christianity, Mr. 
Parker begins with establishing the excellence of the 
preceptive and moral part of Christianity, and thence 
proceeding to the miracles, pronounces them useless, 
and not satisfactorily proved. Strauss, on the other 
hand, commences with the miracles, pronounces them 
impossible, and proceeds to propose and establish a 
theory to account for the origin of these remarkable 
stories. But in dissolving the miracles into thin air, he 
does not, like Parker, spare the moral and preceptive 
parts of the Gospels, or the example of Christ. With 
stern impartiality, and apparently in utter blindness to 
the grandeur and loveliness of what he sweeps away, 
he explains, one by one, discourse, parable, prayer, 
miracle, beneficent action, and patient endurance, into 
fictions, leaving little more than the fact that a man of 
Nazareth, named Jesus, lived, taught, and was crucified. 
The extravagance and impossibility of Strauss's theory 
is, that he supposes this immense harvest of myths to 
have grown, from scarce any beginning, into popular 
belief in the course of a single generation. Apart from 
this insuperable objection, his system is consistent and 
perfect, — a masterpiece of skill misapplied, — a tri- 
umph of intellect, "clear, but O, how cold ! " 

On the other hand, the system of Mr. Parker, warm 



156 EVIDENCES OP CHRISTIANITY. 

with a feeling recognition of the holiness of the Savior's 
character and precepts, is by this very recognition ren- 
dered inconsistent with itself. Rejecting the miracles , 
he still retains his faith in narratives which are supported 
by the same external evidence. He retains the super- 
structure of Christianity while he removes the founda- 
tion on which it rests. Mr. Parker gives no theory of 
the miracles ; — hence the apparent strength of his 
argument, disguising its real weakness. He does not 
attempt to explain how the historians, on whose veracity 
he relies for a correct account of Christ's words and 
natural actions, were so egregiously deceived or deceivers 
as falsely to ascribe to him supernatural actions. Had 
any such attempt been made, we may reasonably con- 
clude that it would not have succeeded better than those 
of Paulus, Venturini, and others, whose absurdity has 
been sufficiently proved by the acute and self-consistent 
logic of Strauss. 

We cannot but notice the manner in which Mr. Parker 
classes the ancient revelation, given, as we believe, by 
God through Moses, with the systems of Pagan idolatry. 
He is fond of such expressions as these : w Every nation, 
city, or family has its favorite God, — a Zeus, Athena, 
Juno, Odin, Baal, Jehovah, Osiris, or Melkartha, who is 
supposed to be partial to the nation which is his r chosen 
people." t? Neither the Zeus of the Iliad, nor the Elohim 
of Genesis, nor the Jupiter of the Pharsalia, nor even 
the Jehovah of the Jewish prophets, is always this" — 
(the Being of infinite power, wisdom, and love) . " Rom- 
ulus, .ZEacus, Minos, Moses, receive their laws from 
God." These passages occur in the section of the fifth 
chapter, first book, which treats of Polytheism. If the 



MIRACLES. 157 

point can be made out that the Jews were Polytheists, 
let it be proved ; but till we have at least some pretence 
of proof, let not the monstrous conclusion be coolly 
taken for granted. 

The fourth chapter of Mr. Parker's third book is 
entitled " The Authority of Jesus, its Real and Pretended 
Source." In this chapter he argues, first, that " the only 
authority of Christianity is its truth," — and that this 
being self-evident, testimony is altogether superfluous 
and unnecessary. To such an argument, already re- 
ferred to, it is, perhaps, enough to reply that it appears 
to confuse two things different in their nature, — moral 
and demonstrative reasoning. Mathematical truths, the 
subjects of demonstration, can acquire no force from 
testimony, to those whose minds are capable of appre- 
ciating the description of evidence on which they proper- 
ly rest. Moral truths are intrinsically different. They 
admit of degrees in our persuasion of them, according to 
the considerations which may be urged for and against 
them ; and among such considerations, that of testimony, 
whether natural or supernatural, may properly find a place- 
In his next section, Mr. Parker speaks "of the au- 
thority derived from the alleged miracles of Jesus." To 
this authority he objects at the outset that the claim is 
not peculiar to Christianity, as other religions also claim 
to be miraculous in their character. To this objection 
the reply is obvious, Let the other religions prove their 
miracles, as those of Christianity are proved. For the 
visions of Mohammed w r e have nothing but his own word. 
The wonders of Grecian mythology are attested only by 
the poets, and by traditions whose origin none pretended 
to verify. So too with the Scandinavian and Oriental 



158 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

mythologies. Of the pretended Catholic and Mormonite 
miracles, some have been fully exposed as deceptions, 
and all are combined with systems whose internal evi- 
dence of untruth is too strong to allow them to be prov- 
able by any miracles. Notwithstanding the assertions 
to the contrary, with which this section abounds, the 
miracles of the Bible stand alone, as claiming to rest on 
appreciable evidence, and in connection with a system of 
belief, worthy of such support. This last is one of those 
considerations which Mr. Parker overlooks. He argues 
about miracles and internal evidence as if to believe the 
one were to reject the other ; as if it were impossible or 
inadmissible to unite them, and let them strengthen one 
another. So far from this being the case, it is admitted 
by all intelligent advocates of the Christian miracles, 
that the high character of the system in favor of which 
they are adduced, is a most important consideration, 
an indispensable one, indeed, for their own credibility. 
This important principle is well laid down in an article 
in the Edinburgh Review, for October, 1847. The 
author of that article says, in speaking of a test of 
miracles, "But the rule of rules which approaches as 
nearly to a test as the nature of the subject seems to 
allow, is the rule which makes the force of evidence 
from miracles depend on their conjunction with internal 
evidence, and on their conspiring with a high and worthy 
object." " As the main ground of the admissibility of 
such attestations is the worthiness of the object, — the 
doctrine, to receive them, its unworthiness will discredit 
even the most distinctly alleged apparent miracles, and 
such worthiness or unworthiness depends solely on our 
moral judgment of the consistency of the doctrine with 



MIRACLES. 159 

other acknowledgd truths." In accordance with this 
view, the writer quotes the sentiments of Johnson, 
Arnold, Doederlein, Pascal, and Whately. 

The question, What is a miracle? Mr. Parker an- 
swers with distinctness, and in a manner deserving of 
particular attention. "A miracle," says he, "is one of 
three things : 1. It is a transgression of all law which 
God has made ; or, 2. A transgression of all known 
laws, but obedience to a law which we may yet discover ; 
or, 3. A transgression of all law known or knowable 
by man, but yet in conformity with some law out of our 
reach." 

Declaring a miracle under the first definition to be 
impossible, and that what the second definition describes 
is no miracle at all, he distinctly admits the possibility 
of the third hypothesis. This admission the Christian 
may accept with full satisfaction. It corresponds to the 
character which is most properly assigned to the miracles 
of Jesus. None can suppose them arbitrary acts, with- 
out reason, and therefore without law. But how they 
were wrought, in conformity to what system, we know 
not, nor is it probable we ever shall know, until we 
become clothed with immortality. 

He next inquires, Did miracles occur in the case of 
Christianity? On this question he observes correctly 
that it is purely historical, to be answered like all other 
historical questions, by competent testimony. 

We have now come to the verv kernel of the nut — 
the section in Mr. Parker's book upon which its trust- 
worthiness depends. If he can convince us that there 
is not sufficient competent testimony to prove the miracles 
of the Bible, historical Christianity is overthrown, and 



160 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY- 

we must content ourselves with such fragments of the 
fabric as with our author's assistance we can save from 
the crumbling mass. If he fails to prove this, and if, 
on the contrary, the evidence of miracles stands unin- 
jured by the assault here made upon it, his entire theory 
falls. If the miracles are actually proved, it is idle to 
argue that there is no need of them. Such arguments 
will not prevent us from believing them. 

And what do we find in this all-important section ? 
An attempt like that of Paulus, to explain the miracles 
on natural principles? One like that of Strauss, to ac- 
count for the origin of such stories when no correspond- 
ing actions had taken place? Nothing of the kind. 
The witnesses, the very witnesses, to whom Mr. Parker 
has given the highest praise in declaring that the religious 
system they have transmitted to us is the absolute, the 
true religion — these witnesses he now attempts to dis- 
credit by some cursory observations on their discrepan- 
cies, and our uncertainty as to their authority. He 
compares the canonical Gospels with the apocryphal ; a 
comparison which, as we shall see in another chapter, 
will, when fairly carried out, increase our faith in the 
genuine documents, by the strong contrast they, present 
to those wretched imitations. He admits the very strong 
evidence which exists from the Epistles as well as the 
Gospels, for the resurrection ; but enumerating with 
great exaggeration the circumstances which in his opinion 
render that miracle incredible, he declares that he can- 
not believe such facts on such evidence. He leaves 
unmentioned, however, the strongest of the evidences for 
the resurrection — the fact that Christ's doctrine, instead 
of remaining crushed by the death of its promulgator, 



MIRACLES. 161 

immediately rose and diffused itself through the world, 
arming its adherents with the strength of the martyr 
spirit, and uniting on its banners the name of the resur- 
rection with that of Jesus. 

Next follows a comparison of the miracles of Christ 
with those ascribed by monkish historians to St. Ber- 
nard, — with the wonders of the Salem witchcraft, — 
with the case of Richard Dugdale, the w Surey Impostor." 
The miracles of St. Bernard and the Salem wonders, 
possess, in Mr. Parker's opinion, more evidence than 
the miracles of Christ. He does not say " better evi- 
dence," and it seems hardly possible that such can have 
been the meaning he intended to convey. The compari- 
sons he suggests are worth following out. 

St. Bernard, of Clairvaux, is known to us through 
the medium of Church History, as one who wrought 
wonders by genius, eloquence, courage, and genuine 
though mistaken piety. He is asserted by monkish 
historians to have wrought miracles also. The difference 
between these narrators and those who record the mira- 
cles of the Savior, is sufficiently obvious. Bernard 
moved among those who were disposed to receive his 
actions and his teachings with the greatest reverence ; 
to look for miracles from him, not to question his powei 
to perform them : the narrators of his wonders incurred 
no risk of martyrdom for their attestation, but rather 
were encouraged to invent miracles by the ideas of their 
age, to which pious frauds were not unknown. In these, 
respects the case was entirely different with the miracles 
of Christ. They were wrought in the midst of jealous 
enemies ; they were witnessed and recorded by men who 
must have known that their lives were endangered by 
11 



162 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

the testimony they gave. Above all, there could not be 
in the case of Bernard, that occasion for miracles, that 
%x dignus Deo vindice nodus, 9 ' which can alone be pre- 
sented by the great occasion of making a revelation to 
mankind. 

The miracles ascribed to St. Bernard appear in con- 
nection witl\his advocacy of the second crusade. When, 
about the middle of the twelfth century, the Christian 
kingdom of Jerusalem, established by the victories of 
Godfrey of Bouillon, was threatened by the Saracens, 
and the important outpost of Edessa had already fallen, 
the Christians of the East sent a suppliant embassy for 
aid to their western brethren. Kings and people were 
alike excited ; but the most powerful advocate of the 
new crusade was Bernard, then at the height of his 
popularity and power. He was one of those persons 
who seem born to command others. When he entered 
the monastic life, his influence carried five companions 
with him ; and after he became abbot, he procured the 
recognition, by France and England, of Pope Innocent 
II. over his rival, Anacletus. He refused the archbish- 
opric of Milan, met and vanquished the celebrated Abe- 
lard, and, to use the language of Mosheim, his " word 
was a law," and his "counsels were, regarded by kings 
and princes as so many orders to which the most re- 
spectful obedience was due," 

Bernard, in preaching the crusade, visited the cities 
on the Rhine; and in each, we are told, he restored 
sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, and cured the 
lame and the sick ; thirty-six miracles are recorded as 
performed in one day. The disciples who followed him 
could not help regretting that the tumult wherever he 



MIRACLES. 163 

appeared, prevented their seeing several of bis miracles. 
Philip, Archdeacon of Liege, gives a detailed relation 
of those which were wrought in the space of a month, 
appealing to the authority of ten eye-witnesses. There 
is good reason to believe, therefore, that if not by 
Divine interposition, yet by the effect of strong excite- 
ment on the nerves of the sick, some cures were actually 
wrought. 

But, unfortunately for his fame as a worker of mira- 
cles, Bernard claimed also the character of a prophet. 
In the excess of his zeal for what he thought a holy 
cause, he foretold, in the name of the Most High, a 
series of splendid triumphs. The effect of such prom- 
ises, from one so eloquent and so honored, was such 
that, in his own words, he depopulated cities and prov- 
inces. Glow in 2: with faith and courage, the strength 
of Europe came forth to the rescue of the Holy Land. 

The crusade, however, was utterly a failure. Two 
or three years were spent in constant disaster and suffer- 
ing ; and then the remnant who survived returned, hav- 
ing accomplished nothing. There was a general outcry 
against Bernard, and he could but make the feeble de- 
fence, that his prediction of success was of course con- 
ditional, and that it was not fulfilled because of the 
un worthiness of the crusaders. Notwithstanding this 
apology, the result of the crusade clearly settles the 
question as to Bernard's prophetic foresight. As effect- 
ually, if not as obviously, it settles that relating to 
his miraculous power ; unless we can believe that the 
Almighty would impart that power to a mistaken enthu- 
siast, to enable him to lead thousands of his fellsw-men 
to destruction. 



lGi EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

As to the Salem witchcraft, into a degrading compar- 
ison with which Mr. Parker brings the miracles of our 
Lord, did he never read that many of the very persons 
most implicated in that delusion subsequently acknowl- 
edged their error ? Could he point in the New Testament 
history to a recantation on the part of John or of Peter, 
like that of Chief Justice Sewall? We may, indeed, 
with good reason consider all the surviving witnesses 
and agents in those melancholy transactions as uniting 
in the repentant acknowledgments that were afterwards 
made by the public voice of New England. The re- 
marks made on the miracles of St. Bernard are also in 
part applicable here. The witnesses were sustained by 
the general public feeling. There may have been some 
cases in which, through the strong delusion of the pe- 
riod, the victims admitted their own guilt, and thus 
insured their own execution ; but the cases were proba- 
bly far more numerous in which they resolutely main- 
tained their innocence, even when life might have been 
saved by pretence of acknowledgment and repentance. 
But here more strikingly than in the case before men- 
tioned, the most obvious difference is in the occasion for 
the miracle. That God should interrupt the common 
laws of nature to gratify the malevolence of some 
wicked woman or child, who wished to inflict some 
petty injury on a neighbor, is a supposition so absurd 
as to defy all testimony to prove it. That God should, 
at some few solemn periods in the history of a world, 
give some miraculous attestation to those truths which 
are of most importance to man to know, is fo the re- 
flecting mind more probable than that he should leave 
his children entirely to the doubtful light of nature. 



MIRACLES. 165 

"But now," says Mr. Parker, "admitting in argu- 
ment that Jesus wrought all the miracles alleged ; that 
his birth and resurrection were both miraculous ; that 
he was the only person endowed with such miraculous 
power, — it does not follow that he shall teach true 
doctrine." This argument is hardly worth a serious 
answer. 

The section concludes, and with it the chapter, with a 
repetition of the argument, that if Christianity be true, 
its truth is self-apparent, and therefore miracles are 
unnecessary; fortified by a quotation from Locke, in 
which, according to our author, that philosopher ad- 
mitted the worthlessness of miracles. Such, indeed, 
would be the conclusion derived from a cursory exam- 
ination of that passage, under the guidance of Mr. 
Parker's italics : such was not the meaning of Locke. 
All that is claimed in the passage is, that reason must 
be the judge of miracles — first, of the nature of the 
action alleged to be miraculous, and secondly, of the 
credibility of the doctrine, to maintain which the miracle 
is said to have been wrought. "The miracles," he says, 
" are to be judged by the doctrine, not the doctrine by 
the miracles." To this, as properly understood, every 
intelligent Christian assents. It is but the expression, 
in other words, of the rule already quoted from the 
Edinburgh Review, the rule which makes the force 
of evidence from miracles depend on their conjunction 
with internal evidence, and on their conspiring with a 
high and worthy object. 

It is admitted that miraculous evidence would not be 
competent to convince us of the truth of an inhuman, 
degrading, sensual doctrine ; to set up again the bloody 



166 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

altar of Moloch, or the licentious rites of Astarte. But 
is the miraculous evidence, therefore, worthless, which 
assures us that the holy words of Jesus are not merely 
the musings of a sage, but the message of God? To 

© © 7 © 

Mr. Parker, it appears those words, recommended by 
their intrinsic truth, needed no other sanction. To 
many it is not so. To the mass of mankind it is not, 
and it never can be, a matter of indifference whether the 
doctrines of a future life, and of divine providence, have 
or have not the seal of miracles. Thanks be to God, 
that the holy seal is plain and clear ; and that every in- 
vestigation of its authority establishes more firmly the 
genuineness of the impression it bears from the chan- 
cery of heaven. 

Eenan. 

Among ^recent writers against the historical truth of 

© © 

the Gospel records, none has attracted so much attention 
as M. Ernest Renan. His "Life of Jesus" possesses 
much of the interest of a romance ; and for the reason 
that he has, like a writer of fiction, derived his narrative 
in great part from his own imagination. With his live- 
liness of fancy there is blended, however, a genuine 
admiration for the character — imperfectly as he appre- 
ciates it — of the glorious Personage he attempts to 
describe. This admiration is exhibited in such lan- 
guage as the following : — 

© © o 

"This confused medley of visions and dreams, this 
alternation of hopes and deceptions, these aspirations 
incessantly trampled down by a hateful reality, at length 
found their interpreter in the incomparable man to whom 



MIRACLES. 167 

the universal conscience has decreed the title of Son of 
God, and that with justice, since he caused religion to 
take a step in advance, incomparably greater than any- 
other in the past, and probably than any yet to come." 
(Close of Chap. I.) 

"Hillel, fifty years before him, had pronounced apho- 
risms closely analogous to his. By his poverty, endured 
with humility, by the sweetness of his character, by the 
opposition which he made to the hypocrites and priests, 
Hillel w T as the real teacher of Jesus, if w r e may say 
teacher when speaking of so lofty an originality." 
(Chap. HI.) 

K In his great soul such a faith (in the power of prayer) 
produced effects entirely different from those which it 
produced upon the multitude. With the multitude, 
faith in the special action of God led to a silly credulity, 
and to the deceptions of charlatans. To him it gave a 
deep idea of the familiar relations of man with God, 
and an exaggerated faith in the might of man : ad- 
mirable errors, which were the principle of his power." 
(Chap. III.) 

"Hillel, however, will never be considered the real 
founder of Christianity. The palm belongs to him who 
has been mighty in word and in work, who has felt the 
truth, and, at the price of his blood, has made it tri- 
umph. Jesus, from this double point of view, is with- 
out equal. His glory remains complete, and will be 
renewed forever." (Chap. V., close.) 

"Whatever may be the surprises of the future, Jesus 
will never be surpassed. His worship will grow young 
without ceasing ; his legend will call forth tears without 
end ; his sufferings will melt the noblest hearts ; all 



168 EVIDENCES OP CHRISTIANITY. 

ages will proclaim that among the sons of men there is 
none born greater than Jesus." (Close of the book.) 

From the regard for the character of Christ which is 
thus expressed, and the lively fancy which fills up those 
blanks in the Savior's life, which occur by the surrender 
of the miraculous element, it has resulted that this book, 
though in some sense written against Christianity, has 
in another point of view aided its progress. Persons 
have read E-enan who could not have been induced to 
hear or to read the work of a professed defender of the 
Gospel ; and they have thus seen in the character of 
Christ traits of divine beauty. Among those who have 
thus been brought to reverence Jesus, some, we trust, 
have learned to believe on him as their Savior. 

M. Renan disclaims prejudging the miracles of Chris- 
tianity. He disclaims denying the possibility of mira- 
cles. " We do not say," he remarks, " miracles are 
impossible. We say, there has been hitherto no mira- 
cle proved." (Introduction, page 44, of Wilbour's trans- 
lation.) Our methods of investigation, he reminds us, 
are now scientific. If a miracle were now asserted to 
have taken place, an inquiry would be made into it by a 
scientific commission. No such investigation was made, 
or could be made, in regard to the miracles ascribed to 
Jesus. 

To this argument it may be replied, in the first place, 
that the age of Jesus and his apostles was not as differ- 
ent from our own as is here alleged. Careful investi- 
gation was not then impossible ; nay, careful and even 
hostile examination was then actually made. Of this, 
we find a distinct example in the case of the blind man 
restored to sight, as described in the ninth chapter of 



MIRACLES. 169 

John. The national council of the Jews examined the 
man, and cross-examined him. They heard other wit- 
nesses ; they summoned his parents ; they exhorted him 
to confess a deception. With all their investigation they 
could gain from the man himself, and from other wit- 
nesses, no different account, but that he had been blind, 
and had received from Jesus the gift of sight. 

Their decision against Jesus was not the result of 
their examination, but of predetermined hostility, occa- 
sioned by the attitude in which Jesus stood towards 
themselves, and availing itself, probably, in this instance 
as in others, of the subterfuge of ascribing the cure to 
the power of evil spirits. If it be said that we have 
this narrative only on the authority of a writer, who is 
thought by many not to have been an eye-witness, or 
even contemporaneous, w r e reply, that doubt on this 
subject has only arisen from an unwillingness to receive 
miraculous narratives ; that the Gospel of John is in 
fact better authenticated than the works of most other 
historians of a period equally distant, and that Renan 
himself admits it to be genuine. As another instance 
of a miracle investigated by high authority, of hostile 
disposition, we may take that of the lame man cured at 
the gate of the Temple (Acts, Chaps. III. and IV.) r 
and as still another, and more important, that of the 
resurrection of Jesus from the dead. In this case we 
have the story told by the Roman guards, — or at least, 
told of them by the Jews, — a story which the Christian 
historian never could have invented, since it would make 
against himself or his cause, while its improbability can 
be seen at once when we consider the despondency of 
the disciples after the death of their Master, the high r 



170 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

devoted, and truthful spirit which they always exhibited, 
and the absence of any motive on their part to keep up, 
after his crucifixion, a deception which could only expose 
them to persecution. 

Again, while the miracles of Jesus were thus well 
attested in the age in which they occurred, they were 
not isolated occurrences, but connected with a system, 
some of whose elements were of the kind that are not 
bounded by space and time. To the moral miracles of 
Christianity we have already paid some attention, in 
the comparison we have made of it with heathen systems, 
and with the best efforts of the human mind to surpass 
it, and set it aside. Other moral wonders we may con- 
template in the marvellous teaching of the Jewish na- 
tion, their constant expectation of a Messiah, and their 
obvious rejection by God's providence, after they had 
rejected God's appointed Messenger. Such moral mir- 
acles render probable the introduction of material mira- 
cles, for they indicate a divine interposition ; they show 
that the Almighty recognized an object of sufficient 
importance to direct to its attainment his course of prov- 
idential government. If then, for the same great object, 
outward miracles were needed, the same divine purpose 
would be carried forward by bestowing them. 

We need not enter into the details of M. Renan's 
survey of the life of Jesus. His general account is 
that inspired by the teaching of nature, the traditions 
of his people, and his own wonderful genius ; the young 
carpenter of Nazareth commenced his work of the re- 
generation of his country and of mankind in a cheerful 
spirit; that as opposition rose and increased, he became 
more stern, perhaps more ambitious, and less true ; that 



MIRACLES. 171 

he, in some instances — at least in the raising of Laz- 
arus — descended to share in deception ; — that when he 
found all turning against him, and that he could accom- 
plish his work in no other way but by his death, he 
prepared himself, with true greatness of soul, for that 
event, and gave up his life in attestation of the great 
doctrines he had proclaimed. Contrary to most writers 
of his class at the present day, R^nan admits the genu- 
ineness of the Gospel of John. His reasoning on this 
subject is of importance, and will be considered in our 
view of the question to which it relates. Admitting 
this, however, he is obliged to account, in some way, 
for the story of Lazarus. The mode by which he does 
this is extraordinary. The family at Bethany, accord- 
ing to him, became impatient at the long delay of Jesus 
in asserting his claims. To urge him forward, they de- 
vised a singular fraud. Lazarus, who had been sick, 
feigned death, and his sisters mourned for him with all 
the customary signs of grief. Jesus came, and was in- 
duced, by their urgency and expressions of firm belief, 
to make trial of his own power to raise the dead ; and 
at his word, Lazarus raised himself from his pretended 
lifelessness. Jesus, if he was afterwards convinced that 
there had been an imposture, yet allowed the story of 
his miracle to pass uncontradicted. It is scarcely need- 
ful to point out the objections to this supposition. It 
ascribes to the family at Bethany the most contradictory 
feelings and conduct. They revere Jesus as the wise 
and holy messenger of God, yet they presume upon his 
ignorance and folly to play off upon him a most shame- 
ful deception ; to excite God's Messiah to do God's 
work, they commit an act of falsehood and impiety. 



172 EVIDENCES OP CHRISTIANITY. 

He, whom they have so grossly deceived — great and 
good Reformer as he is — neither takes offence at their 
presumption, with regard to himself, nor at its violation 
of the honor due to God, but quietly permits himself to 
be made a sharer in their crime. 

We have seen in the case of Strauss, that the attempt 
to reconstruct Christianity, by removing its miracles, 
arose from the principles of a false philosophy, accord- 
ing to which miracles were impossible. Thus it is also 
with Renan, and the fact should be kept in mind by all 
who are in danger of being led away by his fanciful 
book. The contrast of Renan's whole mode of thought 
and style of principle with the strict simplicity and deep 
religious feeling of the Gospel of Christ, has been well 
set forth by Dr. Beard, of England, in his "Manual of 
Christian Evidence." (London, 1868.) For our own 
purpose, two extracts from Renan's writings will be suf- 
ficient. The first, by its loose morality, indicates a 
deficiency in one of the most important conditions for 
appreciating the character of Jesus, and the other ex- 
hibits how religiously one can talk who disowns religion ; 
how a plain question can be answered by shrouding it 
in a mist of words, and how the existence of God can 
be denied and his name retained. 

"There are often people, like clergymen, riveted, as 
it were, to an absolute faith ; but even among them, a 
noble mind rises to the full extent of the issue. A worthy 
country priest, through his solitary studies and the sim- 
*ple purity of his life, comes to a knowledge of the impos- 
sibilities of literal dogmatism ; and must he, therefore, 
sadden those whom he formerly consoled, and explain 
to the simple folk those mental processes which they can- 



MIRACLES. 173 

not comprehend? Heaven forbid! There are no two 
men in the world whose paths of duty are exactly alike. 
The excellent Bishop Colenso showed an honesty, which 
the Church, since her origin, has not seen surpassed, in 
writing out his doubts as they occurred to him. But 
the humble Catholic priest, surrounded by timid and 
narrow-minded souls, must be quiet. O, how many 
close-mouthed tombs about our village churches hide 
similar poetic reticence and angelic silence ! Do those 
who speak when duty dictates, equal, after all, in merit 
those who in secret cherish and restrain the doubts known 
only to God?" ( w The Apostles : " Carleton's edition, 
page 51.) 

Perhaps this apology for hypocrisy is ironical. We 
have heard such language before ; and it is well chosen 
to weaken the influence of those who defend Christian- 
ity, by the insinuation that they do not themselves be- 
lieve it. Our second extract is as follows : — 

?f To those w r ho, planting themselves on substance, 
ask me, ' Is he, or is he not, this God of yours?' Ah ! 
I shall reply, God ! It is he that is, and all the rest 
but seems to be. Granting even that for us philoso- 
phers another word might be preferable ; besides the 
unfitness of abstract words to express clearly enough 
real existence, there would be an immense inconven- 
ience in thus cutting ourselves off from the sources of 
poetry in the past, and in separating ourselves by our 
speech from the simple who adore so well in their way. 
The word God, possessing as it does the respect of hu- 
manity, the word having been long sanctioned by it, and 
having been employed in the finest poems, to abandon 
it would be to overturn all the usages of language. Tell 



174 EVIDENCES OP CHRISTIANITY. 

the simple to live a life of aspiration after truth, beauty, 
moral goodness — the words would convey no meaning 
to them. Tell them to love God, not to offend God, 
they will understand you wonderfully. God, Provi- 
dence, Immortality ! good old words, a little clumsy, 
perhaps, which philosophy will interpret in finer and 
finer senses, but which it will never fill the place of to 
advantage. Under one form or another, God will al- 
ways be the sum of our supersensual needs, the cate- 
gory of the ideal, the form, that is, under which we 
conceive the ideal, as space and time are the categories 
of bodies, that is to say, the form under which we con- 
ceive of bodies. In other words, man placed in the 
presence of beautiful, good, or true things, goes out of 
himself, and, caught up by a celestial charm, annihilates 
his pitiful personality, is exalted, is absorbed. What is 
that, if it be not adoration?" (Essay on Feuerbach 
and the New Hegelian school, in " Studies in Religious 
History and Criticism ; " New York : page 340.) 



AUTHENTICATION OF THE RECORDS. 175 



CHAPTER X. 

Authentication of the Records, 

The accounts we have of the life and teachings of 
Jesus Christ come to us in the four Gospels ; and, in 
addition to these, there are other documents, some con- 
nected with previous ages, and some w T ith the time imme- 
diately after that of Jesus, the whole constituting that 
volume so widely known and reverenced as w The Bible." 

Whence does this volume come ? and how do we know 
anything of the age and authority of its contents ? These 
are questions that occur to thousands of minds, and in 
many instances never receive a definite and correct an- 
swer. How do I know, the inquirer may continue, that 
the whole collection was not forged, either lately, or in 
ages of greater darkness than the present ? I have heard 
that Luther was excited to those studies that made him 
a reformer, by finding a Latin Bible in the convent 
library ; but how do I know that Luther did not write 
it himself? 

This last question may be thought too absurd for any 
one to ask, since even an intelligent child would soon 
think of the answer, that the Roman Catholics, who hold 
Luther in abhorrence, have substantially the same Bible 
as the Protestants. This answer, obvious as it is, in- 
volves an important principle, and carries us far back into 
the past, with sure conviction that the Scriptures we 



176 EVIDENCES OP CHRISTIANITY. 

reverence existed then. The principle is this, that if 
two rival sects or parties agree in owning the authority 
of the same work, and in declaring that it came down 
to them from before their division, their testimony is to 
this extent undoubtedly true. If the work had been 
written by either party after their separation, their rivals 
never would have accepted it as authority, or give credit 
to any story of its higher antiquity. 

This first step, then, has carried us back beyond the 
time of Luther, showing that the Bible has been in ex- 
istence more than three hundred and fifty years. A 
second step will take us much further. Ask any one 
w T ho has travelled in Greece or Russia what sacred books 
are reverenced in those countries, and he will answer, 
with surprise at your question, that they have the Bible, 
the same Scriptures with ourselves, only in their lan- 
guages instead of ours. The Greek church, to which 
the inhabitants of those countries belong, ceased to have 
communion with the Latin or Western church about the 
year 1050. Our Scriptures then must have come to us 
from a higher antiquity than the date of this separation. 

The sect of Nestorians became separated from the 
Greek church about the year 430. They are still in 
existence ; American missionaries have had friendly in- 
tercourse with them, and one of their bishops has visited 
this country. They hold, and have ever held, the same 
Scriptures with ourselves. Those Scriptures then must 
have been generally received at the date thus designated ; 
and to be thus received, as the authoritative books of the 
religion, they must have come down from a still more 
ancient period. 

This description of argument can be extended still 



AUTHENTICATION OF THE RECORDS. 177 

further back, with regard to the books of the New Tes- 
tament, as known to have been acknowledged by sects 
which then divided between them the Christian church. 
Thus the great Arian controversy, which arose in the 
year 317, makes it certain that our sacred books were 
received by all parties in the reign of Constantine the 
Great, the first Christian emperor. In that reign, Eu- 
sebius. Bishop of Csesarea, a man of high distinction in 
church and state, wrote an Ecclesiastical History. The 
account which he gave of the Scriptures will claim our 
attention hereafter ; at present, continuing our former 
method of argument, we find in the controversies, which 
divided the church before Constantine, proof of the gen- 
eral reception of the sacred books at a very early period. 
We may have occasion to follow this proof out more 
minutely in relation to some particular writings. 

With regard to the Old Testament, we can trace, in 
the same way, much further back ; for those venerable 
Scriptures are held in reverence by the Jews, as well as 
by Christians, and must, therefore, have been received 
as genuine and authentic before the rise of Christianity. 

To go back still further, w T e are told that in the reign 
of Josiah, the high-priest found the Book of the Law 
in the Temple, and that the king read therein, with an 
emotion, which gives the idea that he then saw the vol- 
ume for the first time.* From this, some have fancied 
that Hilkiah, the high-priest, did not find the Book of 
the Law, but forged it ; that he made up artfully the 
five books ascribed to Moses, partly it might be, from 
previously existing documents, but partly also from his 

* 2 Kings xxii. 8-13. 

12 



178 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

own imagination. But we know, that in the time of 
Josiah, there was a rival branch of the Hebrew race, 
then, indeed, mostly in captivity or exile, but who after- 
wards reapppeared as the Samaritans — a small remnant 
of whom is yet in existence. Nothing would have in- 
duced these people to receive as genuine a volume of 
the Law, forged by their ancient rivals ; but they al- 
ways have received as genuine, and as possessing the 
highest authority, copies of those same early writings 
ascribed to Moses, that the Jews and ourselves read. 
This fact shows us that the book found in the davs of 
Josiah was no forgery of that age, but dated back to a 
time at least as early as the reign of Solomon — a thou- 
sand years before the Christian era. 

Such is the testimony afforded by varying sects. Thus, 
from those divisions which have often been regarded as 
unmixed evil, has Divine Providence brought an impor- 
tant argument in defence of revelation. 

But suppose our doubter should inquire, What assur- 
ance have I that what I have been told is true re- 
specting ancient sects, controversies, and historians ; 
respecting even the belief of men at this day in other 
countries than my own? 

To relieve his doubts, he must be reminded that not 
only a general reliance on the truth of what is told us 
is the foundation of all intercourse of man with man ; 
but that when the testimony is given by common report 
to statements respecting which thousands must have 
been informed, and when that evidence is all one way, 
without being contradicted or questioned by any wit- 
ness, our very nature compels us to believe it. Thus, 
the statement that the Russians are of the Greek church, 



AUTHENTICATION OF THE RECORDS. 179 

and that they yet receive the same Scriptures with our- 
selves, is one which, if false, would be set aside by the 
testimony of thousands. It may be received, therefore, 
undoubtingly, testified, as it is, by common fame. So 
even with regard to events in the history of ages past ; 
if they are such as must have been notorious at the time 
of their occurrence, and if the testimony respecting them 
be a]l favorable, they are entitled to our belief. Our 
reception of them as true may indeed be affected by 
their own Apparent probability or improbability, by the 
number of the witnesses, and other considerations ; but 
it is safe to admit the truth of those statements which 
have been handed down by universal consent, respecting 
the characters and conduct of distinguished men. 

There is another branch of the evidence on which we 
receive, not only the Scriptures, but the literature of 
ancient times in general ; this consists of references and 
quotations, by which authors testify to other authors 
who have preceded them. 

Sometimes this testimony is direct. We take up, for 
instance, the biography of an eminent writer. The 
author of the biography gives an account of the works 
composed by the subject of his memoir. If we take up 
one of those works, and doubt as to its authorship, we 
are reminded of this direct testimony of the biographer, 
and we doubt no longer. Or, instead, let us take in 
hand a book on some department of science. We find 
in it quotations from another book on the same subject, 
giving the author's name as w T ell as repeating his words. 
We turn to the book which bears the name of the author 
quoted, and we find the quotation there, on the page to 
which reference had been made. The genuineness of 



180 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

that book, then, is testified by the writer who quoted 
from it. By thousands of such references, the literature 
of preceding ages is linked together ; and he who 
would throw doubt on the general reception of any 
ancient author, must account for all the quotations of 
his works from their date to the present time. 

An instance of the difficulty of such a task, is pre- 
sented by the effort of Father Hardouin, a learned but 
fanciful writer, two centuries since, to dispute the gen- 
uineness of many classical writings. While he admitted 
that Virgil wrote the Georgics, he asserted that the 
^Eneid was composed by monks in the thirteenth cen- 
tury, and falsely ascribed to Virgil. If such an absurd 
fancy needed argument to disprove it, the references 
to the ^3Eneid in ancient writers would be sufficient. 
Omitting Horace and others, who do not specify the 
poems of Virgil to which they refer, we find the xEneid 
mentioned by Propertius and Ovid, contemporaries of 
its author, and by Statius, Juvenal, and Martial in the 
next century, while Silius, Pliny the Elder, Tacitus, 
and Quintilian speak of Virgil in a manner which only 
the existence of the iEneid can explain. To destroy 
the credit of these witnesses would require the erasure 
of all references to their works, as well as to the ^Eneid 
itself, in the writings of subsequent authors. 

Now the evidence to the genuineness of the four Gos- 
pels from quotations and references in later writings, 
is of the same character with that which so clearly proves 
the early existence of the ^Eneid, and its reception as 
the work of Virgil. Not to dwell needlessly on later 
writers, there is a vast mass of Christian literature, con- 
sisting of the works of w the Fathers," as they are styled, 



AUTHENTICATION OP THE RECORDS. 181 

— Christian writers, from the first to the sixth century. 
Am oner these writers, the more recent refer to the more 
ancient; and most of them refer to the Gospels, and 
other books of the New Testament, Besides the Fa- 
thers, there were early writers who w r ere regarded by 
most as heretical, and heathen writers against Christian- 
ity. Some works of both these classes remain ; and 
others, which have perished, have still been quoted in 
such a manner by those of the Fathers who replied to 
them, that we can gather from these quotations valuable 
references to the Scriptures, 

The evidence of these early writers has been often 
brought forward ; with great fullness in the celebrated 
work of Lardner, and more briefly by Paley and others. 
It is condensed in our "Manual" (sections 12 to 15), 
after careful revision, lest any witness should be brought 
forward of whose testimony there was reasonable doubt. 
In dispensing, after such examination, with the evidence 
of Barnabas, Ignatius, and Hennas, we pronounced no 
decision against the genuineness of the works ascribed 
to those writers, but set them aside as still in contro- 
versy. For our present purpose we will examine three 
of the earliest witnesses, each in connection with one of 
the next generation ; taking thus together John the 
Elder — if not the Apostle — and his pupil Papias, 
Poly carp and his pupil Irenaeus, and Justin and hia 
pupil Tatian. 

Papias was bishop of Hierapolis in Asia, early in the 
second century, — about A.D.. 116, — and quotes as 
his authority, " John the Presbyter," or Elder. As this 
term became at length distinctly attached to an order of 
church officers, many have supposed that it was applied 



182 EVIDENCES OP CHRISTIANITY. 

to the instructor of Papias to distinguish him from John 
the Apostle. It is evident, however, that in primitive 
times the terms bishop or overseer, presbyter, and even 
apostle, were used much more loosely than in later 
ages. (See Acts xx. 17, 28 ; xiv. 14.) Peter and John 
are called Elders (1 Peter v. 1 ; 2 John 1 ; 3 John 
1), the latter using the name as if it was his customary 
or favorite designation, in Epistles, which even if their 
genuineness be questioned, at least mark the use of lan- 
guage in the early age of Christianity ; and " Elder " 
would have been the worst possible designation to apply 
to a writer for the purpose of distinguishing him from 
the apostle who was near a hundred years old. We 
can scarcely doubt, therefore, that Papias was a disciple 
of John the Apostle. Even if otherwise, his teacher 
was a Christian minister, whose earlier life had been 
contemporaneous with those evangelists of whom he 
epoke. His account was as follows : — 

w The Elder said, that Mark, being the interpreter of 
Peter, carefully wrote down all that he retained in 
memory of the actions or discourses of Christ ; not, 
however, in order, for he was not himself a hearer or 
follower of the Lord ; but afterwards, as I said, a com- 
panion of Peter, who taught in the manner best suited 
to the instruction of his hearers, without giving a con- 
nected narrative of our Lord's discourses. Such being 
the case, Mark committed no errors in thus writing 
some things from memory ; for he made it his sola 
object, not to omit anything which he had heard, and 
not to state anything falsely." 

Of Matthew, he says, " Matthew wrote the oracles in 



AUTHENTICATION OP THE RECORDS. 183 

the Hebrew language, and every one interpreted them 
as he was able.'' * 

This distinct testimony of Papias is strongly sup- 
ported by two passages in the Epistles of Peter. In 
the first Epistle, chapter v. 13, he speaks of Mark 
affectionately as his son. In the second Epistle, chap- 
ter i. 15, he says, w Moreover, I will endeavor that ye 
may be able, after my decease, to have these things al- 
ways in remembrance ; " — a promise which received its 
explanation and fulfilment in the Gospel which this 
beloved companion wrote from his dictation. The 
"undesigned coincidence" of these passages in three 
different writings, is a strong proof of the account given 
by Papias ; and while it also confirms the genuineness 
of the Epistles of Peter, yet, even if that was denied, 
it would still prove the very early existence of a belief 
in the church that Mark stood in an especially near 
and tender relation to Peter, and that that Apostle at 
least contemplated the preparation of a Gospel. 

Another hearer of the Apostle John was Poly carp, 
bishop of Smyrna, respecting whom his disciple Irenaeus 
bears explicit testimony. K I can tell the place," he 
says, " in which the blessed Polycarp sat and taught, 
and how he related his conversation with John and oth- 
ers who had seen the Lord, and how he related their 
sayings, and what he had heard concerning the Lord, 
both concerning his miracles and his doctrine, as he had 
received them from the eye-witnesses of the word of life ; 
all which Polycarp related agreeably to the Scriptures." 

In this account of the testimony of this venerable man, 

* Eusebius, Eccl. Hist., Lib. III., ch. 39. See Norton's Gen- 
uineness of the Gospels, Vol. L, p. 243. 



184 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

who, at eighty-six years of age, laid down Lis life as a 
martyr for Christ, the mention of the miracles is espe- 
cially worthy of notice, as showing that these wonderful 
works constituted, in the minds of the apostles and their 
companions, an inseparable part in the ministry of their 
Lord. The accounts given by Polycarp from the lips 
of the apostles are stated also to have been w agreeable 
to the Scriptures." What Irenseus understood by "the 
Scriptures," is perfectly clear, so far as relates to the 
four Gospels, of which he gives a distinct account, with 
the names of their authors, and the order in which they 
were written. Besides his testimony respecting his 
master, we have numerous references to the Gospels in 
an Epistle by Polycarp himself. (See " Manual," sec- 
tion 13, pages 42, 44.) 

We have, in the united evidence of Justin Martyr 
and his disciple Tatian, a testimony similar in character 
to that just adduced. Justin was, by his education, 
qualified to discriminate among writings ; and by the 
early period at which he lived, must have been familiar 
with the opinions of the apostles and their immediate 
successors ; while his death as a martyr gives to us the 
highest assurance of his sincerity. In his writings, still 
extant, are many quotations apparently from our Gos- 
pels ; and his account of incidents respecting Jesus, is 
so ample as to afford nearly a complete life of the Savior, 
differing but in two unimportant particulars from that 
given by the evangelists. He does not, however, refer 
to our Gospels by name, but speaks of them under the 
general term of Memoirs or Recollections. From this 
circumstance, some authors have denied that our Gos- 
pels were known to him. 



AUTHENTICATION OF THE RECORDS. 185 

Justin was put to death in or about the year 164. 
Shortly after his death, his disciple Tatian published an 
"Address to the Greeks," or Heathen, vindicating the 
faith for which his master had suffered. Tatian after- 
wards expressed some opinions, on account of which he 
has been regarded as a heretic by later, writers. His 
heresy s^ems to have been, in its origin, merely the 
respectable one of over-strictness in self-restraint. He 
is considered as the first of the Encratites, a term which 
may be literally translated Temperance men. His 
ascetic views either led him into, or were encouraged by, 
the Gnostic doctrine of the evil of matter. Tatian com- 
posed a Diatessaron, or compend of Four Gospels, of 
which Theodoret, a writer two hundred years later, gives 
us some information. He found the book in use in his 
diocese, and removed it, because, he says, Tatian had 
cut away "the genealogies, and all else which shows 
that the Lord was born of the race of David according 
to the flesh." He testifies, however, that the book was 
in use among Catholic Christians, and gives no hint 
that the four Gospels which it abridged were any other 
than those which w T ere generally received. Indeed, his 
mention of the genealogies which had been cut away, 
identifies two of them with our Matthew and Luke. 

Eichhorn and others have endeavored to maintain that 
Tatian's four Gospels were different from ours. Their 
proof is from a passage in Epiphanius, a writer of the 
fourth century, who says that some call Tatian's com- 
pilation w the Gospel according to the Hebrews." As 
Matthew, it is known, wrote in Hebrew, it is probable 
that this name may have been given to his Gospel as 



186 EVIDENCES OP CHRISTIANITY. 

employed by Tatian.* But the evidence is so ample 
shortly, after, from Irenseus, Origen, Tertullian, and 
many others, to the general use of our Gospels near the 
end of the second century, that no reasonable doubt 
remains of their identity with "the four" which were 
employed by Tatian. 

We have then this writer, a man whose heresy pro- 
ceeded from an over-punctilious morality, a man whd 
had the Christian courage to stand forth for the Gospel 
over the grave of his martyred instructor, bearing wit- 
ness for our four Gospels, as the true records of the life 
of Christ. He was the pupil of Justin, and converted 
to Christianity by him. From Justin, then, he received 
his knowledge of the books in use among Christians. 
If Justin had not known and approved the four Gospels, 
Tatian would not have used them. If Justin's "Me- 
moirs " had been a different book, Tatian would have 
used that also, presenting a harmony of five Gospels 
instead of four. Justin's profession of Christianity was 
made about the year 132. Carefully trained in philoso- 
phy, a native of Palestine, and a student at Alexandria, 
he must have known what books were held by his new 
associates to be authentic records of their faith. His 
authority, then, thus strongly inferred from that of his 
disciple Tatian, carries our four Gospels far back to- 
wards the times of the Apostles, 

* For another conjecture, see Norton's Genuineness, Vol. III., 
p. 279, note. 



MANUSCRIPTS, VERSIONS, COINS, MONUMENTS. 187 



CHAPTER XI. • 
Manuscripts, Versions, Coins, Monuments. 

We have seen, in the last chapter, something of the 
historical and traditional proof, on* which we receive the 
sacred writings, and especially those of the New Testa- 
ment. A proof of a different description is furnished 
by ancient Manuscripts, and by the early Versions or 
Translations of the Scriptures. Our belief receives 
confirmation also from existing relics of the past, whether 
in the shape of coins, or of more massive monuments. 

Of course, if we possessed the original manuscript of 
any work, fully certified to be such, its evidence would 
be of the highest value. This, however, is not the case, 
either with regard to the books of the New Testament, 
or to any other writing of that distant age. But there 
are manuscripts in existence, of the works of antiquity, 
whether secular or sacred ; manuscripts in great num- 
bers, and some of them of very early date. 

The art of printing was discovered about the middle 
of the fifteenth century. Previous to that time copies 
of books were multiplied by the hand alone. -We should 
be in error to conclude, however, that they were always 
excesssively rare. Copying was pursued by numbers 
as a regular business ; by others as an occupation for 
leisure time. After the general reception of Christianity, 
the copying of the Scriptures was undertaken by many 



188 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

from religious motives ; and wealthy and even imperial 
penmen made their manuscripts splendid with coloring 
and gilding. Still later, the monastic life gave to its 
votaries an abundance of time, which was employed by 
numbers of them in preparing copies of the Scriptures, 
and other religious books, and of the classical authors. 

The writing and deciphering of manuscripts present 
many particulars worthy of attention. Nothing perhaps 
is more curious than the restoration of a manuscript 
which had been partially obliterated to make way for 
other writing. Parchment, the material most valued 
for such writing, was of high price, especially in the 
middle ages, when there were few who understood the 
method of preparing it. The person then, who desired 
to copy some work which was then in high esteem, would 
take an old parchment book, and, erasing in part the 
letters with which it was covered, would use it as if it 
were new material. But in process of time, as his 
writing lost its freshness, that which he had tried to efface 
would attract attention, — and might, by chemical 
means, be entirely restored. Such is the history of one 
of the most valuable manuscripts of the New Testament, 
the " Codex Ephremi Rescriptus," in which the ancient 
letters had been ineffectually erased, in order to write 
upon the same parchment the works of St. Ephrem the 
Syrian. Such a manuscript is called a Palimpsest, 
"rubbed again," from the Greek n&hv, again, and ydto, 
to rub. 

The comparative value of manuscripts of the same 
work depends, of course, upon their antiquity. The 
period at which a manuscript was written can be deter- 
mined from various circumstances. One of these is the 



MANUSCRIPTS, VERSIONS, COINS, MONUMENTS. 189 

material, the oldest in existence being some copies of 
Pentateuch, in Hebrew, on rolls of crimson leather ; 
most of the manuscripts, however, which are older than 
the sixth century, are on parchment. The inner bark 
of some trees, called in Latin Liber, in Greek Biblos, 
was so commonly used for writing on, that these words 
came to have, in those languages, the meaning of 
w book." Especially the fibrous coating of the Egyptian 
reed, called papyrus, from which the word paper is de- 
rived, supplied the principal material for books from 
very early times till the seventh or eighth century, when 
paper made of cotton began to take its place. 

Another circumstance indicating the a^e of manu- 
scripts is the method of writing ; the older ones being 
written upright, — or in the way commonly called 
w printing with the pen," — and all in capitals, or " uncial 
letters," without division of words, or marks of punctu- 
ation or accent. A knowledge of the period when suc- 
cessive changes began to appear, will, therefore, in most 
instances, enable the accomplished scholar to decide on 
the age of the manuscript before him. 

In many instances the copyist has himself dated his 
manuscript; in others, marginal notes, by a later, but 
still ancient hand, fix their own date by some allusion 
to contemporaneous persons or events, and thus show 
the still older origin of the manuscript they illustrate. 

In these and other ways the age of these interesting 
relics can, with considerable accuracy, be determined. 
The number of them known to be in existence is very 
large, and additions are constantly made to it by dis- 
coveries in old libraries, and especially in the monasteries 
x)f the East. In those monasteries, these ancient treas- 



190 EVIDENCES OP CHRISTIANITY. 

ures have been kept for centuries, safer perhaps through 
the very superstition and ignorance of their guardians, 
than if they had been freely used by them, or parted 
with to others. Some, however, have been brought 
from these hiding-places none too early. In one instance 
" a learned traveller, mentioned by Mr. Curzon, in in- 
quiring for manuscripts, was told that there were none 
in the monastery ; but when he entered the choir, to be 
present at the service,* he saw a double row of long- 
bearded holy fathers, shouting the Kyrie eleison, and 
each of them standing, to save his bare legs from the 
damp of the marble floor, upon a great folio volume, 
which had been removed from the conventual library, 
and applied to purposes of practical utility in the way 
here mentioned. These volumes, some of them highly 
valuable, this traveller was allowed to carry away with 
him, in exchange for some footstools or hassocks, which 
he presented to the monks." * 

In one of the monasteries in Egypt, Archdeacon Tat- 
tam found the floor of a vault covered with manuscripts 
and fragments of books, eight inches deep, which had 
lain there, apparently, many years. From these he was, 
able to purchase three hundred and seventeen books, in 
whole or in part, in Syriac, Aramaic, or Coptic, which, 
with many similar treasures, are now in the British 
Museum, f 

In the work from which these facts are derived, it is 
stated (page 5) "that the integrity of the records of 
the Christian faith is substantiated by evidence in a ten- 
fold proportion more various, copious, and conclusive 

* History of the Transmission of Ancient Books, by Isaac Taylor, 
page 234. 

t Idem., page 250. 



MANUSCRIPTS, VERSIONS, COINS, MONUMENTS. 191 

than that which can be adduced in support of any other 
ancient writings." That this statement is correct with 
regard to manuscripts will be evident from a comparison 
elsewhere made. (Pages 180, 181.) Of the history 
of Herodotus, there are fifteen manuscripts known, of 
which several are not older than the middle of the fif- 
teenth century. Of the Greek Testament, in whole or 
in part, nearly five hundred ancient manuscripts have 
been examined. If the more recent ones are included, 
the whole number of manuscripts of the Gospels, or 
portions of them, was stated some years since at six 
hundred and seventy. 

With regard to the antiquity of manuscripts, the same 
author states as follows : — 

"A Virgil, in the Vatican, claims an antiquity as high 
as the fourth century ; there are a few similar instances ; 
but generally the existing copies of the classics are at- 
tributed to periods between the tenth and fifteenth cen- 
turies. In this respect, the Scriptures are by no means 
inferior to the classics. There are extant copies of the 
Pentateuch, which, on no slight grounds, are supposed to 
have been written in the second or the third century ; and 
there are copies of the Gospels, belonging to the third 
or the fourth, and several of the entire New Testament 
which unquestionably were made before the eighth." 

Nor have these copies been found in one locality alone. 
Among the most ancient of them, for instance, the 
Alexandrian manuscript, was from the city in Egypt 
whose name it bears ; having been brought thence to 
Constantinople by the patriarch Cyril, who afterwards 
presented it to Charles I. of England. The Codex 
Bezae, on the other hand, was said by the reformer 



192 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

Beza to have been found in the monastery of St. Ire- 
naeus, at Lyons, in France ; and the recently discovered 
Sinaitic manuscript was procured by Professor Teschen- 
dorf, on behalf of the Russian government, from the 
monastery on Mount Sinai, in Arabia. These instances 
show the wide diffusion of the sacred writings, rendering 
it more difficult to conceive how any forged document 
could have been received into general circulation as a 
part of holy Scripture. 

We have spoken in the "Manual" (page 52), of the 
early versions of the New Testament. To illustrate 
their value, we will take a single instance. Among the 
manuscripts in the British Museum, of which we have 
already spoken, rescued by Dr. Tattam from an Egyp- 
tian vault, Dr. Cureton discovered a copy made in the 
fifth century, of a translation of the Gospels into Syriac, 
of still higher antiquity. There is a well known Syriac 
version, called the Peshito (plain or literal), which has 
long been considered the oldest ; but this is older still. 
In various places this version has been altered to 
make it conform to the Peshito ; the older translation 
being corrected by that which was more recent, and sup- 
posed therefore to be more accurate. .Other considera- 
tions unite in fixing the date of this " Curetonian Syriac 
version" in the second century. Our four Gospels, 
therefore, not only existed at that time, but they were 
then so highly valued that men would undertake the labor 
of translating them into other languages.* 

The support given to the authority of ancient books 

* Remains of a very ancient Recension of the Four Gospels in 
Syriac, &c„ by William Cureton, D. D., F. R. S. London, 1858, 
Preface, pages i., iv., lxvjii. 



MANUSCRIPTS, VERSIONS, COINS, MONUMENTS. 193 

by features of nature and monuments of art, deserves 
more lengthened mention than the plan of this work 
permits. Of the features of nature, we find that the 
geography of Palestine agrees with the statements made 
respecting it in the Bible so fully, as to extort an expres- 
sion of delighted acquiescence, even from Renan. He 
says, — 

" The scientific commission for the exploration of an- 
cient Phoenicia, of which I was the director in 1860 and 
1861, led me to reside on the frontiers of Galilee, and 
to traverse it frequently. I have travelled through the 
evangelical province in every direction ; I have visited 
Jerusalem, Hebron, and Samaria; scarcely any local- 
ity important in the history of Jesus has escaped me. 
All this history, which, at a distance, seems floating in 
the clouds of an unreal world, thus assumed a body, a 
solidity, which astonished me. The striking accord of 
the texts and the places, the wonderful harmony of the 
evangelical ideal with the landscape, which served as. its 
setting, were to me as a revelation. I had before my 
eyes a fifth gospel, torn but still legible, and thence- 
forth, through the narratives of Matthew and Mark, 
instead of an abstract being, which one would say had 
never existed, I saw a wonderful human form live and 
move. * 

Among the monuments of art, we find in the city of 
Jerusalem remarkable confirmation of what the Old 
Testament tells us of its history. Mr. Taylor, in the 
last chapter of the work already quoted, gives a vivid 
description of the various fortunes of this city, which 

* Life of Jesus. Introduction, page 45. 

13 



194 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

has been continuously inhabited for three thousand 
years ; refers to the accounts in the books of Kings 
and Chronicles, and still more to the incidental allu- 
sions in the Prophets, which imply the might of the 
ancient Jewish empire, and the wealth and luxury of 
its capital ; and compares with this the results attained 
by recent excavation in the long-trodden streets of Je- 
rusalem ; summing up his argument in the following 
words : — 

f? Here, then, the two portions of an inferential argu- 
ment come into contact ; and it is just at the basement 
line of the palaces and the mansions of the ancient Je- 
rusalem that they do so. The juncture is of this sort : 
we hold in our hand the various literature of an ancient 
people ; this literature has traversed the fields of time in 
those several modes of conveyance to which, in the pre- 
ceding pages, we have given attention ; it has thus come 
into our hands safely ; it stands attested in modes so 
many and so sure, that now to speak of it as if it were 
questionable, would be a mere prudery and an affecta- 
tion. Up and down throughout these writings we find 
incidental notices of the sumptuous style of the upper 
classes of the people in their modes of living, and in 
the decoration of their public and private buildings ; at 
least it is so as to what were the visible parts of such 
structures. The kings and the nobles of the Hebrew 
monarchy were men of great wealth ; ample revenues 
were at their command, and they spent their incomes 
magnificently. Looking to the documents — the parch- 
ment rolls — the volumes of the prophets of those ages, 
such are the inferences we must derive from them. 

w But what objects are those that present themselves 



MANUSCRIPTS, VERSIONS, COINS, MONUMENTS. 195 

when, with the pick in hand, we go down to the levels 
of the ancient Jerusalem? What we there find are 
courses of highly-wrought masonry, with which, as to 
the dimensions of the single blocks, and the labor that 
has been bestowed upon them, nothing can be com- 
pared, unless it be in Egypt, and at Palmyra. The 
inference is valid, namely, that the people of this city, 
— even those whose structures, sacred and domestic, un- 
derlie the monuments of eight or nine successive empires 
or kingdoms, — the primeval people must have been 
wealthy, and far advanced in the arts, and large also 
in their conceptions, and bold in their enterprises. They 
were a people great and w r ell civilized, and they were so at 
a time when, as the Greek historian tells us, the ances- 
tors of his nation were petty marauders by sea and land, 
and were feeding upon acorns ! " 

In a similar manner are the Biblical accounts con- 
firmed by what is known of other ancient cities, — those 
of Egypt on the one side, with Nineveh and Babylon on 
the other ; the recent explorations, which have brought 
to light the palaces, statues, and inscriptions of former 
days, adding continually new details of agreement to the 
testimony already afforded by them to the truth of the 
early Scripture history. Light is shed upon the faith, 
the patience, the sufferings, and the success of the early 
disciples by the Catacombs of Rome, — those vast cav- 
erns beneath the city, from which stone was formerly 
taken for its buildings, and which were used by the per- 
secuted Christians as places of assembly, and also as 
places of burial. The inscriptions they cut in those 

* Transmission of Ancient Documents ; near the end 



196 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

rocks, where the remains of their martyrs were depos- 
ited, still bear witness to the faith that animated them, 
to the persecutions to which that faith subjected them, 
and to the patient, loving, and trusting spirit with which 
those persecutions were endured. 

Not the least curious of the ancient monuments in the 
illustration they afford are the coins that are found scat- 
tered far and wide throughout the world. The testi- 
mony which these bear to the truth of history may be 
exemplified by one which is before us as we write. It 
bears on one side a head, with the inscription, "Louis 
XVI., Roi des Francois," — not, according to the old style 
of territorial sovereignty, " Roi de France," — with the 
date 1791. On the other side appears an angel writ- 
ing on a tablet, with the inscriptions "Regne de la Loi," 
and "L'An 1 de la Liberte." How strikingly does this 
confirm what history tells us of that brief period in the 
French Revolution, when the royal authority, though 
greatly circumscribed, was still acknowledged ! The 
Jewish coins extant are of the age of the Maccabees, 
and chiefly of the time of Simon, the high-priest, about a 
century and a half before Christ ; they bear emblems 
of religious service, such as sacrificial cups, censers, 
and a sprig supposed to represent Aaron's rod. Some 
remarkable illustrations by ancient coins, of the accu- 
racy of the book of Acts, are mentioned in the "Man- 
ual," section 15, page 53. 

But all these sources of illustration yield in impor- 
tance to that which is given by the influence of the Gos- 
pel on human society. The institutions of our own age, 
and, if we have any faith in history, the institutions of 
ages past, for at least fifteen hundred years, have been 



MANUSCRIPTS, VERSIONS, COINS, MONUMENTS. 197 

founded upon Christianity, and testify to their origin. 
Not only has the cross been emblazoned on banners, but 
it has been deeply impressed on the minds, the charac- 
ters, and the customs of princes and of people. The 
power which even now, in its comparative weakness, is 
strong enough to delay the progress alike of popular 
revolution and of scientific advancement, and which, in 
the middle ages, spread over all Europe a shade at once 
darkening and protecting, — the power of the Papacy, 
— different as it is from what enlightened Christianity 
would sanction, still shows, like a deformed child of 
giant parentage, the greatness of the source from which 
it sprung. Civilization cannot indeed be traced to Chris- 
tianity exclusively ; but those institutions that mark the 
humanity of modern times, the hospital, the common 
school, nay, the monastery, w T hich gave protection to 
the weak and the oppressed in a darker age, — these are 
the monuments of Christianity. The changes made in 
the habits and usages of men attest its power : the more 
lenient treatment of criminals, of prisoners, and of debt- 
ors ; the softening of the customs of war ; the better 
appreciation of the poor, and more humane conduct 
towards them ; and the thrice-won victory over slavery, 
abolished, as we have already pointed out, in its classi- 
cal, its feudal, and its American forms, — all these are 
but portions of the marks impressed deeply on the his- 
tory and the condition of mankind, of that great blessing 
which God gave the world, eighteen centuries since, in 
the coming of the Son of Man. 



198 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 



CHAPTER XII. 
The First Thkee Gospels, 

In judicial investigation, reliance is justly placed on 
the account that is supported by the testimony of several 
persons. One witness may be himself deceived, or may 
intend to deceive others. With each additional one the 
probability of such mistake or falsehood is diminished, 
and that not merely in simple proportion to the number 
of those who testify. If they are independent of each 
other, so that they cannot contrive between them what 
story they shall relate, their agreement upon the same 
account affords a proof of its truth, much greater than 
the sum of their separate assertions. 

The absence of concert between witnesses may be 
proved by various circumstances. If they tell precisely 
the same story, incident for incident, and word for 
word, their close agreement, instead of establishing 
their truth, suggests a suspicion that they have com- 
bined to deceive ; but if they give substantially the same 
account, with those slight variations that might be ex- 
pected to result from different degrees of attention, or 
different habits of thought, their narrative appears more 
natural, and is more probably true. 

These remarks on evidence are applicable to the first 
four books of the New Testament, known as the Gos- 
pels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. The antiq- 



THE FIRST THREE GOSPELS. 199 

uity of these records is, as we have already seen, vouched 
for by a succession of writers, reaching back from our 
own day to near the very time when they were com- 
posed. We have, then, for the truth of the things re- 
corded of our Savior, the evidence, in the first place, of 
several witnesses, and these witnesses the persons best 
qualified to give information ; two of them being the 
Apostles Matthew and John ; and the other two being 
companions of the Apostles, and deriving from them 
principally the testimony which they have transmitted. 

Let it be supposed, however, that we knew not who 
these writers were ; that the account given by Irenrcus, 
instead of being confirmed by other writers, was -contro- 
verted by them, or that we possessed only these four 
Gospels, with no statement at all how they came into 
existence. Let us apply to the four unknown witnesses, 
as they would be in that case, the remarks already made 
respecting the rules of evidence. 

We should, even in that case, have four distinct and 
independent witnesses, agreeing on a history, in all 
important particulars, one and the same. They are 
independent witnesses, for they differ from each other 
in matters of detail, as people never would differ who 
had concerted their story. Not one of them has copied 
his account from the others, for there is not one of them 
who has not told us some things peculiar to himself. 
Yet though independent, they harmonize in their ac- 
counts. The picture of the Savior, presented by them 
all, is the same ; and it is a representation such as no 
other writer ever conceived. His meekness, his benefi- 
cence, his miraculous power, his figurative mode of 
instruction, his rejection by the Jews, his betrayal, con- 



200 EVIDENCES OP CHRISTIANITY. 

demnation, death, and resurrection, are essentially the 
same, in the accounts of all. This story, then, which 
they combine in telling, must be substantially true. It 
would be a miracle more incredible than any that they 
record, that four independent witnesses should each 
invent a tissue of falsehood, and that all their falsehoods 
should agree. 

The agreements and differences among the Gospels 
require, however, an examination somewhat more mi- 
nute. 

The agreement is greatest among the first three Gos- 
pels ; which, for this reason, are often designated as the 
Synoptic Gospels. Much of the account is the same in 
all the three ; sometimes in the very same words, some- 
times only a word or two in the sentences of one being 
different from those of the others. And yet, elsewhere, 
the three vary greatly. Each, as has been said, tells 
us some things which the others do not mention. Thus 
Matthew alone tells of the flight of Joseph and Mary 
into Egypt, and the massacre of the innocents by Herod ; 
and alone gives us an extended and consecutive recital 
of the Sermon on the Mount. Luke alone relates the 
incidents attending the birth of John the Baptist, the 
parables of the Prodigal Son, and of the Good Samar- 
itan, and the display of the Savior's mercy on the cross 
to the penitent thief; and Mark, the writer of the short- 
est Gospel, has a number of brief and graphic touches, 
peculiar to himself. This singular agreement of the 
three synoptic gospels, in great part blent with differ- 
ences quite as singular, presents one of the most curious 
problems for critical ingenuity to explain. They are 
too unlike to have been copied from each other; yet 



THE FIRST THREE GOSPELS. 201 

how else could they, in so many cases, closely resemble 
each other, not only in sentences, but in paragraphs of 
considerable length? 

In view of this difficulty, different theories have been 
adopted, agreeing in this, that one evangelist copied 
from another ; but it has been hard to determine which 
was the original. Weisse, in 1838, followed by Wilke 
and Bruno Bauer, advocated the idea that the others bor- 
rowed from Mark. Of that short Gospel, only twenty- 
seven verses are not contained in either Matthew or 
Luke. It was therefore supposed that the original 
Mark (Ur-Markus, in German) did not contain these 
twenty-seven verses, but that they were added after- 
wards in some copies, while larger additions in others 
formed the Gospel we call Matthew's, and additions 
still different gave us that which we call Luke's. Un- 
fortunately for this theory, however, these verses, 
though so few, are of that kind that bear most distinctly 
the stamp of authenticity. Among them are several 
which contain Hebrew or Syriac words, — "Boanerges" 
(hi. 17), "Talitha cumi" (v. 41), "Ephphatha" 
(vii. 34), and "Abba" (xiv. 36). We can easily 
conceive that one impressed with the dignity of the 
Savior's bearing, or with the wonders which he wrought, 
should have the very words he uttered so stamped upon 
.his memory, that in telling the story afterwards he 
should repeat them in the original language ; but no 
one would be likely to retouch a story already plainly 
told, by adding to it an unintelligible word. Another 
passage, in relating the cure of a blind man, gives his 
singular expression, " I see men as trees walking " 
(viii. 24) ; another repeats the conversation of Jesus 



202 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

with the father of the epileptic youth, who seems at first 
to have doubted the Savior's power, but at length burst 
forth with the touching words, "Lord, I believe; help 
thou my unbelief." (ix. 24.) Elsewhere we read the 
singular incident of the youth who, at the arrest of 
Jesus, escaped from the soldiers by leaving in their 
hands the sheet in which he had hastily wrapped him- 
self, (xiv. 51, 52.) Who can imagine that these 
vivid touches of nature were later additions? Such 
additions generally mark themselves by an interruption 
of the narrative into which they are unskilfully inserted ; 
but such is not the case here. The "original Mark," 
then, must have contained these passages ; and if so, it 
is highly improbable that the other evangelists would 
have omitted them in copying. 

The theory, therefore, appears untenable that supposes 
the other synoptical Gospels to be derived in any degree 
from that of Mark. Even if, however, it were accepted, 
to the extent necessary to account for the resemblances 
between the three, we must still recognize the other 
portions of Matthew and Luke as equally authentic. 
Their own merit answers for them. The Sermon on 
the Mount, as told by Matthew, the parables of the 
Prodigal Son and of the Rich Man and the Beggar, as 
related by Luke, were no additions from an inferior 
source, but bear the impress of the great original mind 
which even those who deny his divine commission must 
recognize in the Founder of Christianity. 

If the conception of Mark's Gospel as the source of 
the other two cannot be sustained, still less can there 
be any probability in a similar conjecture respecting 
either of the others. If Matthew is thought to have 



THE FIRST THREE GOSPELS. 203 

been the original, we have to account for the parables 
in Luke ; if Luke be preferred, we must find an origin 
for the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew. In either 
case, Mark presents a difficulty ; for though we may 
easily conceive of one writing an abridgment of the other 
Gospels, it cannot be explained how, in such a case, he 
should have added those touches of nature which have 
already been mentioned. The Tiibingen school, there- 
fore, under the lead of Dr. F. C. Baur, have advocated 
an explanation the farthest possible from that already 
spoken of. According to them, our Gospels were not 
the oldest. There was a Gospel of the Hebrews ; an- 
other, of the Egyptians ; another, of Peter ; and an- 
other, of the Ebionites or Nazarenes. These probably 
were much the same. The " Memoirs of the Apostles " 
(ano[ivri!.iov£-{)[mia) , mentioned by Justin, constituted still 
another. From one or more of these various sources 
our evangelists borrowed, Matthew writing first, Luke 
afterwards, and Mark last. Thus where their accounts 
are similar, they copied from the same original ; where 
they differ, they had different authorities. To this it is 
to be added that the writers, except perhaps Matthew, 
had each his particular purpose ; — for " Tendency " is 
the idol of the Tubingen school. Matthew's Gospel 
was, consciously or unconsciously, in the interest of 
Peter and the Jewish Christians ; Luke's in that of Paul 
and his Gentile converts ; while Mark exhibits an 
endeavor to reconcile differences. 

According to this theory, the Synoptical Gospels are 
none of them original documents, nor do they come 
from the immediate age of the Apostles. Why, or how 
the much more valuable original Gospels should have 



204 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

been lost, and their memory have so nearly perished that 
their existence can only be uncertainly conjectured, we 
are not informed, nor is it easy to conceive. The names 
given to these supposed Gospels occur, indeed, in early 
writers ; but it seems probable that the Gospel of the 
Hebrews, and that of the Ebionites, were our present 
Gospel of Matthew, which is known to have been first 
written in Hebrew ; while the Gospel of Peter was no 
other than that of Mark, written, as Papias and Ire- 
na3us inform us, from the instructions of that Apostle. 
The " Memoirs" mentioned by Justin, we have already 
seen, by comparing his testimony with that of his pupil 
Tatian, must have been our present Gospels ; and these 
also, with perhaps some other attempts at evangelical 
composition, were those alluded to by Luke in his pref- 
ace. There was, indeed, a "Gospel according to the 
Egyptians " in existence towards the end of the second 
century ; but the fact that it was not then received into 
the canon presents strong evidence against its claim to 
original authority. The theory of Baur has been greatly 
modified by his later followers. Of these, Hilgenfeld 
admits the date of Matthew's Gospel in its original form 
(Ur-Matthseus,) between A. D. 50 and 60; and of its 
revised edition between 70 and 80. Kostlin places our 
Matthew not far from 70. Mark is dated by Hilgen- 
feld, from 80 to 100 ; and Luke, by Hilgenfeld and 
Kostlin, from 100 to 110.* 

The explanation offered by Professor Norton, of the 
resemblances and differences of the first three Gospels, 
appears to us still the best ; and we give it as we re- 

* See Schwarz, Zur Geschichte der Neuesten Theologie, pages 
191, 192. 



THE FIRST THREE GOSPELS. 205 

ceived it forty years since from that revered instructor, 
by whom it was afterwards embodied in his great work 
on the Genuineness of the Gospels. (Vol. I., Note D., 
pages c— ccvi.) In the preaching of the Apostles and 
others to the early church, the incidents of the life of 
Jesus must have borne a part, prominent beyond any 
other subject,- and beyond what even that has been in 
any subsequent age. What the converts chiefly wanted 
to know of their teachers was, what the Master had done, 
and taught, and suffered. And this narrative was not 
only the most interesting in itself, but it was what those 
early teachers were most competent to tell. They were 
not philosophers, carefully trained to pronounce disqui- 
sitions on points of morals ; they were plain men, most 
natural and most successful in their addresses when 
they told a plain story, of which their memory and their 
heart were alike full. Telling this story often, in each 
other's presence, their accounts of it assumed more and 
more a similar and a permanent character. When 
Matthew and Mark and Luke undertook, independently 
of each other, to record what they knew of the life of 
Jesus, they had probably no documents before them, 
but they had strongly impressed on their memories 
those incidents of their Master's life which they had 
heard related a thousand times, and the very words in 
which those incidents had long been customarily told. 
They took these incidents, they took those very words, 
from this generally received account among Christians, 
and each added such further particulars as he had been 
able to learn. Thus it happened that in so many pas- 
sages their accounts appear precisely the same, while in 



206 EVIDENCES OP CHRISTIANITY. 

others each evangelist gives us circumstances which no 
one else relates. 

On this theory, and even on the supposition that 
fragmentary notes of our Savior's life and teachings had 
been used first by one evangelist and afterwards by 
another, we have still, on the whole, three separate and 
independent witnesses. Even on the theory of Baur 
we have as many, only that the original witnesses are 
lost, and we receive their testimony at second hand. 
In either case, therefore, we have the life of Jesus, as 
reported to us by more than one of those who heard his 
voice, and beheld his wonderful works. To these is 
to be added the Fourth Gospel, — ascribed by the voice 
of antiquity, as we believe correctly, to the Apostle 
John. The ground on which we receive it as his work, 
will be our next subject of inquiry. 



THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 207 



CHAPTER XIII. 

The Fourth Gospel* 

There are few questions now presented for the ex- 
amination of theologians, of more pressing interest than 
that of the authorship of the Fourth Gospel. If that 
professed account of the life of Jesus was not the work 
of the Apostle John, but of some unknown writer in 
the middle of the second century, — if, instead of re- 
cording facts that actually occurred, and discourses that 
were actually given, this writer derived his narrative 
from his own imagination, — and if in all this he had 
an especial purpose in view, coinciding with a tendency 
then existing to alter and corrupt the faith which Jesus 
had introduced, then must we change our ideas of our 
Master and of his religion in respects far more impor- 
tant than any that are recognized by the understanding 
alone. We might consent to part with the sublime 
declaration of the Golden Proem, identifying the Savior 
as the incarnate Wisdom of God ; — but what could 
compensate us for his parting words of love to his disci- 
ples ? We might give up our belief that he spoke the 
command, "Lazarus, come forth;" but how could we 
resign that brief text, "Jesus wept" ? Christianity, with- 
out the Gospel of St. John, would still be the world's 
richest treasure; a king, without his crown, is still a 
king ; but the faithful subject would not part with the 



208 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

diadem ; nor would we willingly spare from the glories 
of our Redeemer the Gospel in which he speaks to us, 
in the most spiritual, and the most loving tones. 

But this prejudice, if so we are to call it, must not 
make us refuse to follow the guidance of truth. It 
will have, however, its legitimate weight, if it only 
counterbalances other prejudices, — that which influences 
many minds in favor of novelty, — and that with which, 
deeply impressed with the depth of German learning, 
the student imagines that the most daring criticism of 
Germany must be right in its conclusions. 

In considering the claim of the Fourth Gospel to be 
the genuine work of the Apostle John, we are struck, 
in the first place, with the very recent origin of any 
doubt upon the subject. In the early catalogues, those 
of Irenaeus, the fragment found by Muratori, and Euse- 
bius, the book is named among those which were re- 
ceived without question ; and from those early days to 
near the present century, no author expressed a doubt 
upon the subject, those writers of course excepted, who, 
directly attacking Christianity, threw aspersions indis- 
criminately upon all its records. Evanson, in 1792, first 
stated a doubt of the genuineness of the Gospel. He 
was followed by Bretschneider in 1820. Some w r riters 
endeavored to show that two different pens were em- 
ployed upon the book ; but their arguments were fully 
set at rest by Baur, who pointed out the unity of the 
book in style and purpose. His theory was, "that the 
book was written at the earliest about the year 160, in 
the midst of the Gnostic, Montanistic, and Quartodeci- 
man controversies ; and that it bad a strong connection 
with those movements, not roughly rejecting on either 



THE FOUUTH GOSPEL. 209 

side, but also not mediating by weak compliance ; but 
so that all the different currents should appear carried 
back upon a higher standpoint, and connected in a higher 
unity. On this account has it found, even from its 
presentation, the most general assent." 

The tempting, but unreliable character of Dr. Baur's 
mode of reasoning, may be illustrated by the supposition 
that some foreign writer should hereafter undertake to 
write the history of the United States, and finding that 
misunderstandings had arisen in the present century be- 
tween the different sections, which resulted at length in 
civil war, should maintain that the document known as 
K Washington's Farewell Address " must be a forgery, 
palmed upon the world by some benevolent deceiver, 
about the middle of the nineteenth century, for the sake 
of composing these sectional differences by the influence 
of a great name. 

Of the high estimate formed by this great writer of 
the intellectual and spiritual worth of the Gospel which 
he thus attempts to invalidate, and of the reason which 
prompted that attempt, he has left a remarkable testi- 
mony in the following passage : — 

"A Gospel which, since it came forth into the light 
from the darkness of its origin, has obtained in the 
Christian consciousness of all centuries such an expres- 
sive testimony of its genuine evangelical spirit, can lose 
nothing of its value by all the results of historical criti- 
cism ; it still remains the only tender and right Gospel 
(das einzige zarte rechte Evangelium), which stands 
above all others, and distinguishes itself above them in 
a peculiar manner. Criticism cannot, indeed, without 
entangling itself in inextricable self-contradiction, ever 
14 



210 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

admit that it is the work of the Apostle John ; but the 
creative spirit which produced it from itself is the same, 
whether the individual who was the subject of this spirit 
may have been called thus or otherwise." * 

While we receive with pleasure the strong testimony 
here given to the value of the Fourth Gospel, we can- 
not but notice the reason assigned for denying to it an 
apostolic origin. Criticism requires it, in order to avoid 
a self-contradiction. Knowing what criticism means 
with Baur, — that it involves speculation, theory, and 
especially a decision upon writings with reference to 
their supposed tendency as determining their age and 
authorship, we perceive that in his judgment the gen- 
uineness of the Fourth Gospel is rejected, not for want 
of proof, but from considerations anterior to the discus- 
sion of its evidence. 

That evidence, so far as it is external, we have already, 
to some extent, surveyed in our "Manual" (pages 40, 
41), in the lists of sacred books given by Eusebius, the 
Muratorian fragment, and Irenseus. The testimony of 
the last is of especial importance in the present case, as 
he had been the pupil of a pupil of John. . Poly carp, 
in instructing Irenseus in the Christian faith, must have 
referred to his own venerated instructor more frequently 
than to any other ; and if he had never spoken of John's 
having written a Gospel, Irenaeus would not afterwards 
readily have been convinced that such was the case. 

We can, however, go back beyond the time of Ire- 
naeus. Justin, who suffered martyrdom, A. D. 164, 
though he does not name this Gospel, nor any other, has 
such references as assure us of its existence and recep- 

* Baur in Theol. Jahrbiicher, 1844, page 698. 



THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 211 

tion in his time. He speaks of K the Word having been 
made flesh ; " represents the Baptist as saying " I am 
not the Christ ; " and refers, in three instances, to words 
of Jesus which we find only in the Fourth Gospel.* 

Papias, as we have seen, while vouching for the Gos- 
pels of Matthew and Mark, makes no mention of the 
others. We have, however, already seen reason to 
identify his instructor, " John the Elder," with the Apostle 
John. We can perceive then, why, in relating what 
this Elder had told him respecting other Gospels, he 
should make no mention of John's. That was the 
Elder's own work, known as such to Papias, and to all 
the Christians around ; its origin was no longer to be 
accounted for ; but respecting those which Matthew and 
Mark had written, the information which Papias treas- 
ured up and imparted was new and interesting. This 
state of the case agrees entirely with what is evident 
from the inspection of the Gospels, as well as from the 
account of Irenseus, that the other Gospels were known 
to John, and that his was written in part with. the object 
of supplying their deficiencies. In the times of Irenaeus, 
and afterwards, the evidence is abundant, and receives 
great strength, from the very distant sections of the 
church which the witnesses represent. Irenseus himself, 
as we have seen, testifies alike for the East where he 
was educated, and for the West where he presided in 
the church. The canon of Muratori gives the opinion 
of the Italian churches ; its early date is shown by its 
reference to the Roman bishop, Pius (A.D. 142 to 157), 
with the words " most recently, in our own times " 
(nuperrime, temporibus nostris). Tertullian at Car- 

* Norton's Genuineness, &c, Vol. I. p. 232. 



212 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

thage, and Clement of Alexandria, and Origen in Egypt, 
unite to give us the general assurance of the widely- 
spread church in the beginning of the third century. 
Origen declares that our four Gospels cf are the only 
ones received without controversy in the whole church 
of God which is under heaven." This list of witnesses 
from Asia Minor, Gaul, Rome, Carthage, and Egypt, 
is confirmed by the Peshito, and the probably still more 
ancient Curetonian, Syriac versions.* 

Some other witnesses are deserving of mention. 
Polycrates, Bishop of Ephesus, in 196, quotes from the 
Gospel of John the statement that the apostle whose 
name it bears w leaned upon the Lord's breast." "Even 
Hilgenfeld, one of the most forward of the Tiibingen 
critics, does not longer deny that' the expression is drawn 
by Polycrates from John xiii. 25." f We shall see 
hereafter the importance of this testimony. 

Theophilus of Antioch, in his letter to Autolycus, 
written in 181, designates John as one of the w bearers of 
the Spirit" (nvevixaioyoQoi), and refers to the beginning 
of his Gospel. The same author brought out an inter- 
pretation of the four Gospels, the number specified 
being a proof that they were those which we possess. 

Omitting the quotations by Athenagoras, about A. D. 
177, and Apollinaris, Bishop of Hierapolis, about A. D. 
170, we come to Tatian, the disciple of Justin Martyr, 
whose verification of the four Gospels has already been 
mentioned. Of the four, from which he composed his 
Diatessaron, that of John was one, according to the 

* Riggenbach. Die Zeugnisse far das Evangelium Johannis. 
t Essays on the Supernatural Origin of Christianity, by Pro- 
fessor George P. Fisher, of Yale College. 



THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 213 

express admission of Volkmar, one of the latest defenders 
of the theory of Baur. In his " Address to the Greeks n 
also, of earlier date than the Diatessaron (or about A. D. 
165), Tatian quotes repeatedly from John's Gospel. 
As we have already pointed out, the connection of this 
author with his instructor Justin, gives to his use of our 
present Gospels something of the authority of the pre- 
ceding generation. 

It may be asked, Were there none who early disputed 
the authority of the Fourth Gospel ? Candor compels 
us to admit that there were ; yet, as " the exception 
proves the rule," the presence of a few obscure oppo- 
nents renders more distinct the consent of the vast ma- 
jority of the church. The first notice of any who denied 
the authority of John's Gospel is by Irenseus. That 
early Father has the following words, preserved to us 
only in a Latin translation (3, 11,9): w But others, to 
frustrate the gift of the Spirit, which, in most recent 
times, has been poured forth upon the human race ac- 
cording to the will of the Father, do not admit that 
form which is according to the Gospel of John, in which 
the Lord promised to send the Paraclete ; but they re- 
ject together the Gospel and the prophetic spirit. Un- 
happy, truly, who indeed choose to be false prophets 
themselves^ but repel the grace of prophecy from the 
church ; suffering like those, who, on account of per- 
sons that come in hypocrisy, abstain themselves also 
from the communion of the brethren." * Without 

* " Alii vero, ut donum spiritfts frustrentur, quod in novissimis 
temporibus secundum placitum Patris effusum est in humanum ge- 
nus, illam speciem non admittunt, quae est secundum Joannis evan- 
gelium, in qua Paracletum se missurum Dominus promisit. Sed 



214 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

pausing to seek an explanation of all the obscurities of 
this passage, it is sufficient to remark, that the persons 
mentioned in it appear to have rejected or undervalued 
John's Gospel, not from doubt respecting its origin, but 
because of their dislike to something it contained. It 
was thought to favor some views respecting the Holy 
Spirit, which they considered fanatical. But notwith- 
standing their rejection, Irenaeus, who, through his in- 
structor Polycarp, had the best means of information, 
and with him the Christian Church in general at his 
early day, acknowledged with reverence the Gospel ac- 
cording to St. John. 

Two later writers, Philastrius (Haer. 60) and Epi- 
phanius (Haer. 51), relate that these persons also re- 
jected the Apocalypse, ascribing both works to the 
heretic Cerinthus. Their opinion was prompted by 
dislike of Montanism. Epiphanius marked them with 
the name of Alogi, bearing the two meanings of " reject- 
ers of the Logos " and " unreasonable." * Excepting 
this obscure sect, there are found no early opponents of 
this Gospel ; for the fact that the Ebionites used only 
the Gospel according to the Hebrews, which was prob- 
ably the same as Matthew's, does not testify against the 
genuineness of that ascribed to John. The same may 
be said of the exclusive use of Mark by some of the 
Docetae, and of a mutilated copy of Luke by Marcion. 
Various heretical leaders had each his chosen document, 



simul et evangelium et propheticum repellunt spiritum. Infelices 
vere, qui pseudoprophetse quidem esse volunt, propheticam vero 
gratiam repellunt ab ecclesia, similia patientes his, qui propter eos, 
qui in hypocrisi veniunt, etiam a fratrum communione se abstinent." 
* Riggenbach. 



THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 215 

preferred apparently for sectarian reasons, but they do 
not appear to have borne witness against the apostolie 
origin of the writings which they did not use. Those 
writings come to us on the testimony, not of any ex- 
ceptional class, but of the great body of Christian be- 
lievers throughout the civilized world. 

Turning from the strictly external evidence to that 
which is internal, we in the first place notice the lan- 
guage. According to Ewald, a most competent judge, 
in no writer of the New Testament is there a lan^ua^e 
that in spirit and in utterance has more the ring of the 
true Hebrew. The formation of abrupt sentences in- 
stead of orderly sequence, the frequent omission of con- 
necting particles, and the prevalence of "and" and 
" then," answering the Hebrew copulative conjunction, 
are features of this character. 

The very difference between this Gospel and the other 
three, which seems an argument against it, furnishes, 
when more closely examined, proof of its authenticity. 
It fits in with the Synoptical Gospels, furnishing what 
they do not give. The repeated visits to Jerusalem, of 
w r hich John alone makes mention, must have taken 
place, from their connection with facts stated by the 
other evangelists, such as the discipleship of Joseph of 
Arimathea, and the intimacy of the Savior with the 
family at Bethany. Christ himself, too, uses the words, 
in his lament over Jerusalem, "How often would I have 
gathered thy children together" (Matt, xxiii. 37 ; Luke 
xiii. 34) ; words entirely irrelevant, if he had never 
visited the city since his childhood. 

In particular narratives, the completion of the accounts 
from these different sources, by each other, is very die- 



216 EVIDENCES OP CHRISTIANITY. 

tinctly marked. Among many instances, we take the 
following : Luke (xxii. 27) records the words of Christ, 
at his last supper, " I am among you as he that serveth ; " 
John furnishes the explanation of these words, in the 
menial office which the Savior had just discharged, — 
that of washing the disciples' feet. (xiii. 4-12.) From 
Luke alone it would seem that Pilate acquitted Jesus 
very strangely, after he had declared himself a king. 
(xxiii. 1-4.) John supplies the missing link, by telling 
us that Jesus had explained to Pilate that his kingdom 
was not of this world, but that he was a teacher of the 
truth, (xviii. 36, 37.) Sometimes an apparent differ- 
ence is easily reconciled. Thus, in John i. 44, Beth- 
saida is called the city of Andrew and Peter, while the 
Synoptics all speak of Peter's house in Capernaum. 
(Matt. viii. 5, 14, and parallel passages.) But the 
mention, in the same connection, of "Peter's wife's 
mother," suggests the explanation, that the apostle, 
though a native of Bethsaida, was at home in Caper- 
naum by reason of his marriage there. But what forger 
of a later age would have varied from the Synoptics on 
a point of so little importance ? We may make a sim- 
ilar observation on all the points of apparent difference. 
The fourth evangelist, whoever he was, must have 
known the Synoptical account. His venturing to differ 
from it so widely in appearance, though we think so 
little in reality, can only be explained by the uncon- 
sciousness of truth. 

Critics have tried to convict this writer of ignorance 
respecting the geography of the Holy Land, because, 
according to the best established reading, he speaks of 
Bethany on the Jordan, (i. 28.) In the time of Origen, 



THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 217 

no such place was known there, and he altered the 
reading to Bethabara. Both words have the same 
meaning, that of " crossing-place," — a name equally ap- 
propriate to a village, whether by a river or on a hill. 
It is evident that the evangelist well knew the Bethany 
on the Mount of Olives, (xi. 18.) His mention, then, 
of the other "crossing place" on the Jordan, was not 
from ignorance, but from familiar knowledge of the 
country, and of the names by which places were known 
in his time. A similar attempt to convict the apostle 
of error, has been made with regard to the name Sychar 
(iv. 5) , which he was thought to have substituted, through 
ignorance, for Shechem ; but the existence of a place of 
that name in Samaria has been shown, both from men- 
tion of it in the Talmud, and from modern research in 
that vicinity.* 

Not much more successful is the- argument founded 
on the designation of Caiaphas as " high priest that same 
year" (xi. 49), as if the writer had thought the high 
priesthood was an elective office. It is known that the 
Roman authority frequently transferred the dignity from 
one to another, but not at regular intervals. Caiaphas 
held the office more than ten years ; the evangelist does 
not deny this ; he only states that Caiaphas was high 
priest during that important year of which he writes. 

Another objection is drawn from the manner in which 
the writer speaks of w the Jews," as if he himself were 
not one of their number. In some instances he evi- 
dently uses the word in its narrower application, the 

* Wieseler, Chronol. Synop. der vier Evangelien, p. 256, &c. 
Lightfoot's Horae Hebraicse, p. 93 ; Rauner's Palastina, third edition, 
p. 146 ; quoted by Riggenbach. 



218 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

Jews ( Judsei) being the inhabitants of Judaea, the south- 
ern province of Palestine, as distinguished from Galilee, 
(iii. 25 ; vii. 1 ; xi. 8.) It is to be remembered, also 
that the apostle, when he wrote, had long resided among 
Gentiles, and had become separated from his own nation 
by their bitter opposition to the cause to which he was 
devoted. It is, perhaps, no more singular that he should 
speak of "the Jews" as if he did not belong to them, 
than that a citizen of the United. States, who had long 
since emigrated from France, should speak of "the 
French " as if he had not been a native of their country. 

To the objection which has been derived from the 
difference between this Gospel and the others, in regard 
to the scene, the incidents, and the character of the 
Savior's ministry, we find a sufficient answer in the 
testimony of antiquity, that John wrote his Gospel after 
the other evangelists, and with a knowledge of what 
they had written ; that he wrote it, therefore, expressly 
to supply their deficiencies, narrating incidents which 
they had omitted, and ascending to spiritual heights 
which they had not reached. Thus, Clement of Alex- 
andria, about the year 200, writes as follows: "But 
John, last of all, perceiving that what had reference to 
-the body in the Gospel of our Savior was sufficiently 
detailed, and being encouraged by his familiar friends, 
and urged by the Spirit, wrote a spiritual Gospel." 

The Gospel of John merits the name thus given it. 
The mind of John appears to have been deeper, more 
full of lofty thought and tender sentiment, than those of 
his fellow-disciples. Not improbably he had received 
superior advantages of early education. In fact, if the 
tradition respecting his youth is correct, the teaching of 



THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 219 

Jesus came to him as a part of his education, at that 
period of life when the heart is more sensitive to all high 
and pure influences than it is apt afterwards to be. He 
had hung enraptured on the Savior's words, and pene- 
trated deep into their meaning, when it had been veiled 
from others. Few of the miracles does the beloved dis- 
ciple record, and scarcely any of the parables. The 
wonderful acts could be seen by all ; the stories, enter- 
taining and striking, could be set down from memory 
by more common minds ; but it was left for the friend 
of Jesus to transmit to us the deep conversation with 
Nicodemus on the New Birth, the instruction on the 
spiritual nature of God which Christ uttered to the 
Samaritan woman, the promise of the Comforter, and 
the mystic prayer that the disciples should all be one, 
as Christ himself was one with God. 

The style of the Savior's teaching in John's Gospel, 
though different from that in the Synoptics, is not more 
different than may be accounted for by the different 
characters of mind in the writers. They agree in this, 
that the style of the Savior was highly figurative, and 
from- the boldness of the figures he employed, sometimes 
difficult to be understood by those around him; as 
when, in the earlier Gospels, he told them to beware of 
the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees, and they 
thought that he spoke literally of the leaven of bread ; 
and as, in the Gospel of Luke, he told them, "He that 
hath no sword, let him sell his garment and buy one," 
and they in their simplicity showed him two swords, 
with which they were already provided ; not under- 
standing his meaning, that they should arm their minds, 
not their hands, for the conflict that was before them. 



220 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

Thus, too, in John, the Savior washes the feet of the 
disciples, and commands them to wash one another's 
feet ; and some Christians may have thought he was 
instituting an external rite, instead of giving a precept 
of humility. 

We have said that John gives hardly any parables ; 
we might have said, none ; for what are called parables 
in his Gospel, are not narratives, but comparisons. 
But the same fertility of fancy is displayed in the com- 
parisons of the Vine and of the Shepherd, that is shown 
in the parables of the Sower and of the Prodigal Son. 
If Luke had been the reporter of the first mentioned 
illustrations, he would have written, "The kingdom of 
heaven is likened unto a householder, which had a vine," 
and so on, instead of directly, W I am the true vine, and 
my Father is the husbandman." The difference in the 
style, instead of showing a different origin for the ac- 
count, proves that the writer was no mere imitator ; — 
and thus we may say of other differences. A forger, 
who, a century after the time of Christ, had endeavored 
to palm a spurious gospel on the world, would have 
been likely to copy, with servile minuteness, the features 
of the true. 

The difference between the portraiture of the Savior, 
as given by the Synoptics and by John, has been beau- 
tifully illustrated by that which is observable between 
the representations of Socrates by Xenophon and by 
Plato.* Xenophon was a man of practical mind, a 
eoldier and a statesman ; Plato, a philosopher of deep 
investigation as well as of original genius. Their ac- 

* Bleek, referred to by Prof. Eisher. 



THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 221 

counts bear the mark of their respective personalities ; 
yet, combined together, the one supplies the deficiencies 
of the other. 

One of the arguments against the genuineness of the 
Fourth Gospel is founded on its language respecting the 
Logos, the Word, or personified Wisdom of God. (John 
i. 1—14.) In this, the Tubingen school of critics see 
traces of Gnosticism — an early heresy, which endeav- 
ored to refine Christianity by combining it with what then 
passed for spiritual philosophy. Dating the develop- 
ment of this system near the middle of the second cen- 
tury, they assign that as the earliest period when the 
Fourth Gospel can have been written. For the same 
reason Dr. Baur denied the genuineness of some of the 
Epistles of St. Paul. We propose to examine his argu- 
ment in connection with those Epistles. It is well 
known, however, that language similar to that used in 
the Fourth Gospel with regard to " the Word of God," 
was employed long before the rise of Gnosticism. Philo, 
a Jewish writer, of Alexandria in Egypt, contemporary 
with the Savior, makes use of it, and the apocryphal 
book called the Wisdom of Solomon, whose author also 
was a Jew of the Alexandrian school, describes the 
Word as leaping down from heaven out of God's royal 
throne, and touching heaven while it stood upon the 
earth, (xviii. 15, 16.) If it be questioned how the 
ideas of the Alexandrian school became known to the 
Apostle John, the answer is obvious. John, according 
to the ancient accounts, wrote his Gospel in his old age. 
He then resided in the Proconsular Asia, whose great 
cities, such as Ephesus and Smyrna, carried on constant 
intercourse with Alexandria, and with every other centre 



222 EVIDENCES OP CHRISTIANITY. 

of Greek civilization. Can it be wondered at that he 
should show an acquaintance with philosophic ideas and 
expressions which had been in use in the Alexandrian 
school for a hundred years ? 

But the use of the term in the Revelation, which Dr. 
Baur admits to be the genuine work of John, is in itself 
a sufficient answer to his objection. Describing the 
Savior in his exaltation, as going forth to conquer the 
world, the poet says, "His name is called the Word of 
God." (Rev. xix. 13.) Dr. Baur passes this over very 
slightly, with the remark, that the expression is not here 
used in the true sense of the Logos doctrine. Without 
inquiring, however, what peculiar shade of thought Dr. 
Baur regards as the true sense of that doctrine, it is 
sufficient for us that the expression "the Word of God " 
is used, and that it is applied to the manifestation of the 
Almighty in Christ and in his Gospel. This comes very 
near to the thought in the first chapter of John's Gos- 
pel. It suggests the conclusion that the two passages 
are from the same author. Yet should it be denied that 
the Apocalypse was from the hand of John, it is un- 
questionably of such early date, that its application of 
the term Logos to Christ, may well illustrate the similar 
use of that term in the Fourth Gospel. 

We have next to speak of the objection drawn from 
the raising of Lazarus, which is represented as a miracle 
too extraordinary to have been omitted by the other 
evangelists if it had really taken place. The answer 
generally given to this is, that when the Synoptics wrote, 
Lazarus and his sisters were probably still living, and 
might have been pointed out to persecution by a mention 
of the connection in. which they had stood with Jesus ; 



THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 223 

while at the later date of John's Gospel, they had all 
passed away. We may add, that even were they then 
living, the Jewish power to injure them was then broken. 
We would hazard, as a further answer, the following con- 
jecture : When Jesus reached Bethany, he was on the 
road to Jerusalem, and only two miles from it. It seems 
highly probable that on his visit of consolation and 
relief to his private friends at Bethany, he would prefer 
to go with but two or three chosen companions, sending 
the rest of his company forward to the neighboring 
capital. Among these confidential friends was John, as 
on other occasions ; and thus he became the only eye- 
witness among the evangelists, and almost the only one 
among the apostles, of the wonder that took place. 
When we add to this that the occurrence, great as it 
was, was succeeded soon after by the still greater and 
more startling occurrences of the Savior's trial, death, 
and resurrection, we may wonder the less that it was 
omitted by writers who did not witness it themselves. 

But the most important argument against the genuine- 
ness- of the Fourth Gospel, is that which is founded on 
its different representation of the time of the last supper 
from that which is given by the Synoptics. These state 
unequivocally that Jesus kept the passover with his dis- 
ciples. The language of the Fourth Gospel seems to 
imply that the last supper with his friends was before 
the passover. The thirteenth chapter begins with the 
words, "Now, before the feast of the passover, when 
Jesus knew that his hour was come." The disciples 
interpreted certain words said by Jesus to Judas at the 
table, to mean, "Buy those things that we have need of 
against the feast" (xiii. 29), and the next morning 



224 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

the accusers of Jesus w went not into the judgment hall 
lest they should be defiled, but that they might eat the 
passover." (xviii. 28.) These expressions prove, it is 
said, that Jesus partook of his last supper, not on the 
great feast day, but at least one day before. If this 
construction be received, there is a contradiction between 
John and the Synoptics. 

Further, this construction of John's language is 
strengthened by the expression by which he seems to 
identify Christ himself with the paschal sacrifice. He 
quotes and applies to Christ the direction given with 
regard to that sacrifice, — "a bone of him shall not be 
broken." (xix. 36.) Christ, then, says Dr. Baur in 
substance, is represented by the author of the Fourth 
Gospel as the true paschal lamb ; suffering on the same 
day when the paschal lamb was slaughtered. He is 
made to meet his disciples at supper on the day before 
the passover, in order that he may suffer himself on the 
day of the passover ; thus fulfilling the type at the very 
time for which it was appointed. 

Having made a discovery of this "tendency," Dr. 
Baur proceeds to connect it with the Quartodeciman 
controversy respecting the time of keeping Easter, in- 
ferring that the Fourth Gospel was written with reference 
to that controversy, and to give the Occidental party 
therein some apparent apostolical authority. Of course 
this would carry its date down to the period at which 
that controversy was agitated ; and an earlier period 
could scarcely be assigned to it than the middle of the 
second century. 

Further still, the argument against the genuineness 
of the Gospel is thought to be strengthened by the fact, 



THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 225 

that while the Occidental Christians might plead the 
authority of this Gospel for their custom, the Orientals 
did actually and strongly plead the authority of John 
himself for theirs. Polycrates, Bishop of Ephesus, near 
the close of the second century, declared with the utmost 
solemnity, that the Asiatic churches, in celebrating 
Easter on the very day of the Jewish passover, did but 
observe the custom transmitted them by the venerable 
Apostle John himself. We have, therefore, concludes 
Dr. Baur, the personal authority of the Apostle John 
directly opposed to the view presented in that Gospel 
which claims to be called by his name. 

With regard to this ingenious argument, we have in 
the first place to remark, that it proves too much. If 
we are to believe Dr. Baur, it was in the midst of a 
controversy which shook the whole Christian church, — 
a controversy of such importance that Polycarp of 
Smyrna is said to have gone to Rome to confer with 
Anicetus on account of it, the apostolical and evangeli- 
cal authority being thus far entirely on one side, that 
suddenly the opposite side produced a document, purport- 
ing to be of the very highest character — a gospel, and 
the work of an apostle, — of that very apostle too, to 
whom the other party looked up as their especial patron 
and founder. To say nothing of the absurdity of sup- 
posing the glorious Gospel of John to have been written 
for the sake of an obscure inference from some few verses 
in it with regard to a point of ceremony, how came it 
that the fraud was not suspected, nay, was not detected 
in a moment ? What "would be the emotions of Poly- 
carp, when, in his conference with Anicetus, he heard for 
the first time passages quoted from a Gospel purporting 
15 



226 EVIDENCES OP CHRISTIANITY. 

to be from his own great master, but of which he had 
never heard before? Or to come some years lower 
down, when Polycrates of Ephesus solemnly appealed 
to his own gray hairs, and to the elders by whom he had 
been instructed, in reference to the Apostle John's mode 
of keeping Easter, why had he no word to say against 
the atrocious fraud which ascribed a recently-written 
book to that same apostle, in order to bring his testimony 
on the wrong side? So far from this, Polycrates is, as 
we have seen already (page 212), one of the witnesses 
for this very book ! By none of those engaged in this 
controversy was a word of objection to this Gospel 
uttered. Irenseus, the disciple of Polycarp, knew of 
none on the part of his venerable teacher. Eusebius, 
who described the proceedings of the Council of Nicsea, 
where this Quartodeciman controversy was finally set- 
tled, and where the Oriental party must have brought 
forward their objections, still speaks of the Gospel of 
John as of unquestioned genuineness, carefully discrimi- 
nating it, and others with it, from those respecting which 
any doubt existed. There have been successful literary 
frauds, but such a fraud as this was never heard of; — 
to bring in, as the work of a distinguished man, a forged 
document, contradictory to his practice, and to the opin- 
ions and practice of the school which he had founded, 
and to obtain for it universal reception, without the 
slightest objection on the part of that school. We may 
reverse the reasoning of Dr. Baur, and say with truth, 
that the apparent bearing which the Gospel of John has 
upon the Quartodeciman controversy, is a proof that it 
cannot have been introduced while that controversy was 
in agitation. The Orientals, the disciples of John, 



THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 227 

would not haveTorged a work which made against their 
principles ; and the Occidentals could not have intro- 
duced it without a protest from those among whom the 
apostle had lived and labored, and who must have known 
that no such work existed from his pen. 

But how, then, it may be asked, can the objection be 
surmounted, that the book is contradictory to the known 
practice of St. John, as Polycrates describes it? We 
answer, that the contradiction is in appearance only. 
The question between the Eastern and Western churches 
was, whether they should 'keep as a Christian festival the 
Jewish passover, or the Sunday that followed it. The 
Eastern churches kept the passover itself; the Western 
kept the Sunday after. The reason of this difference is 
sufficiently obvious, in the fact that the Jewish Chris- 
tians were more numerous in the East, and naturally 
continued the observance of the same day to which, as 
Jews, they had always been accustomed ; while the 
Western Christians, being principally converts from 
heathenism, were indifferent to the Jewish custom, but 
observed the first day of the week following, being the 
day of the Savior's resurrection. Of course, St. John, 
being a Jew by birth, was likely to follow the customs 
of his nation in all matters of indifference ; and the 
account of Polycrates is therefore undoubtedly true, 
that he, when the season came round which had witnessed 
his beloved Master's death and resurrection, observed it 
especially on that same day that had been observed for 
more than a thousand years. Is this a proof that the 
document cannot have come from him which testifies 
that it was on that day the Savior was crucified ? It is 
true that Easter, as it became afterwards distinctly fixed 



228 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

in the customs of the church as commemorative of the 
resurrection, would not seem to be suitably observed on 
that which wajs the day of the crucifixion ; but we should 
err in ascribing to the Apostle John the finical ritualism 
of a later age. Had he given a thought to the question 
whether he should change, in his observance, the day to 
which he had as a Jew been accustomed, he would prob- 
ably have answered, that the day of his Lord's death 
was as full of precious memories to him as the day on 
which he arose ; and that if those memories were in part 
mournful, yet the mournfulness had been allayed by the 
event that followed, while there remained the joy of 
the great salvation which that death had accomplished. 
He kept, then, the ancient anniversary, and the whole 
Oriental church kept it also. They all knew that it 
could not possibly be the real anniversary of the resur- 
rection ; that took place on, at least, the third day after- 
wards ; but they kept it in memory of the season during 
whose successive days the great sacrifice had been offered, 
and the great triumph over death achieved. 

But if we have succeeded in disentangling the question 
before us from the Quartodeciman controversy, the ob- 
jection still remains that the Fourth Gospel appears to 
assign a different date to the last supper from that as- 
signed by the others. The best as well as the sinplest 
answer to this, appears to be, that John uses the word 
Passover in a comprehensive sense, including not only 
the banquet on the lamb, but the whole subsequent week 
of festivity. This sense of the word is fully authorized 
by the passage in the book of Deuteronomy (xvi. 1-8), 
prescribing the feast. <? Thou shalt sacrifice the passover 
unto the Lord thy God, of the flock and the herd ; " 



THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 229 

literally, sheep and oxen. "Seven days shalt thou eat 
unleavened bread therewith," that is, with the passover, 
that term being thus extended to include the sacrifices, 
of larger as w 7 ell as smaller animals, through the whole 
week. When, therefore, the disciples were supposed 
to be preparing, on the evening of the last supper, what 
they needed "against the feast," and when, on the next 
day, the priests guarded against legal defilement, " that 
they might eat the passover," they had in view, not the 
paschal supper, but the celebration of the subsequent 
days. 

We find in this Gospel an attestation of its own 
authority, of a remarkable character. In the last verse 
but one it is said, " This is the disciple which testifieth 
of these things, and wrote these things; and we know 
that his testimony is true." These words appear to 
have been added by another hand. In the use of the 
first and third persons, the writer distinguishes himself 
from him of whom he speaks. The strong exaggeration 
too, of the next verse, is unlike anything else in this 
Gospel, and betrays a different hand. If these two 
verses, then, were added by another person, and added 
so early as to be found in all existing copies of the Gos- 
pel, we have the direct testimony of a contemporary to 
the fact that this Gospel was written by the beloved 
disciple. If, on the other hand, these verses w r ere 
written by the author of the work, they contain such a 
direct assertion on his part, of his own apostolic author- 
ity, as can be found in neither of the other Gospels ; 
an assertion, which, if the work were not genuine, 
would deprive its publication of all excuse, and present 
it in the aspect of an unmitigated forgery. Well may 



230 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

Renan observe, " We have no example in the apostolic 
world, of a forgery of this kind." * 

While, however, the author, or a contemporary on his 
behalf, thus claims the place of an apostle, the name is 
veiled beneath a circumlocution. He calls himself 
"another disciple" (xviii. 15), and "the disciple whom 
Jesus loved." (xiii. 23 ; xxi. 7, 20.). This seems only 
to be accounted for by admitting the genuineness of the 
work. 

The modern opponents of the authenticity of this 
Gospel generally admit that its author desired it to pass 
for the production of the Apostle John. Strauss as- 
cribes it to some one who had come from a Johannean 
school ; and Baur conceives that one object of its com- 
position was, to give the authority of an apostolic name 
to the Occidental side in the controversy respecting the 
time of keeping Easter. If, then, the author desired 
either to do honor to the Apostle John, or to make use 
of his authority, why should he conceal his name? It 
w r ere better for either purpose to declare it as openly as 
possible. He scruples not to tell us that Peter followed 
his Lord to the high priest's hall of judgment ; why 
should he veil the name of the disciple who accompanied 
him? Why, But that he was that disciple himself, and 
used a circumlocution, either from real modesty or from 
an affectation of it ? 

Kindred to the last topic named is that of the prom- 
inence given to this unnamed apostle. This prominence 
is especially marked in the contrast in which he stands 
to Peter. Peter, wishing to know whom Jesus meant, 

* Life of Jesus, p. 26. 



THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 231 

must beckon to the beloved disciple, who reclines next 
to Jesus ; Peter can only stand at the high priest's 
door, till the beloved disciple, who has familiar access 
there, introduces him; at the sepulchre, they rival each 
other in forwardness, but the palm, on the whole, is 
awarded to the beloved disciple, who "saw and believed ;'' 
and finally, in the scene by the lake, though a solemn 
charge, and the prediction of a martyr's death, are given 
to Peter, yet the beloved disciple, who had first recog- 
nized his Lord, is favored with a mysterious prophecy, 
which seemed to indicate some more exalted destiny. 
All this cannot be accidental on the part of a forger, 
who merely wished to avail himself of the authority of 
the Apostle John. It was either the work of that apos- 
tle himself, or of some ardent admirer of him, who 
sought occasions to exalt his glory. 

But is such ardent admiration of a venerable religious 
teacher consistent with the wholesale falsehood of which 
this supposed disciple of John was guilty ? And why, 
we may ask again, should he have suppressed the name 
of that teacher whom he so idolized ? If, on the other 
hand, we suppose the Gospel to have been written by 
John himself, there are various suppositions which ex- 
plain the prominence thus given to that apostle. We 
may discern in it the effect of vanity. Peter and John 
were the most distinguished of the band ; and the aged 
teacher may have unconsciously dwelt on every little 
circumstance in which he had the advantage. Such is 
the view taken by Eenan. Or, we may suppose that the 
apostle simply told the truth, only that he remembered 
best those particulars in which he had borne a part. 
We are more inclined to see here a contest of Christian 



232 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

principle with acknowledged temptation, than a dull, 
impassive faithfulness. The apostle was conscious of 
a wish to assert his own equality, at least, with him who 
was even then regarded as the chief of the band. The 
wish made him dwell, more than another would have 
done, on minute incidents favorable to his own claims ; 
but the consciousness of that wish, recognized by a 
faithful heart, made him veil his name. Thin as the 
veil was, he meant that it should be an effectual disguise ; 
but all concealment was at an end, when some loving 
follower, probably after the apostle's death, added to his 
manuscript the words, "This is the disciple which testi- 
fieth of these things, and wrote these things, and we 
know that his testimony is true." 

The supposition is worth a moment's pause to consider, 
which regards not these closing words alone, but the 
whole Gospel, as having been written, not by John 
himself, but by his immediate hearers, from the accounts 
which he had repeatedly given them. There are some 
things which give probability to this theory, especially 
the manner in which, more than once, the discourses of 
Jesus pass insensibly into the amplifications of his his- 
torian. This seems like the style of an extemporaneous 
speaker, in whose language there are no quotation marks 
to tell us where he ceases to repeat another's words, and 
begins to explain them with his own. This theory does 
not conflict with our reception of the Gospel as that of 
John. If it came from his disciples, repeating to us 
his words, it is in fact his. But the probability in its 
favor is not sufficient to outweigh the uniform tradition 
of the church ; and the phenomena previously spoken of 
appear more consistent with the direct authorship of the 
beloved disciple. 



THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 233 

We conclude, then, that the Fourth Gospel is the gen- 
uine work of the Apostle John. The various objections 
which have been brought forward, are all susceptible of 
explanation ; and were they stronger than they are, they 
would be more than equalled by the difficulties which 
must attend the opposite theory. If we consider it to 
have been composed in the middle of the second century, 
we have to account for the fact of its universal reception, 
as attested by ample authority at the end of that century. 
Every difference that exists between this Gospel and the 
others, would increase the difficulty of imposing the 
forgery upon the church. It is to us inconceivable that 
had it thus been introduced, no trace of controversy, or 
of opposition with regard to it, should remain, save in 
the obscure heresy of the Alogi. 

But this is not to us the strongest consideration in its 
favor. The intellectual power, the spiritual insight, the 
hallowed warmth of love to God and man, which this 
Gospel manifests, are its strongest, as well as its highest 
proof. We listen with composure to a critic of Shake- 
speare, when he tells us that it is doubtful whether that 
great master wrote Titus Andronicus, or Pericles Prince 
of Tyre. The critic may be right, for those plays are 
comparatively inferior productions. But if he tells us 
that Lear and Hamlet have been wrongly ascribed to 
him, we answer that they bear the indubitable stamp of 
Shakespeare's genius. If he who wrote Macbeth did 
not write these, there were two Shakespeares. The 
greatest of dramatic poets, whom the whole world beside 
has not equalled before or since, had his equal in a writer, 
who yet saw fit to give the credit of his own splendid 
works to his great rival, and let his own name be for- 
gotten. Thus, if the Fourth Gospel be not authentic, 



234 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

the moral miracle of Christianity is doubled. There 
were two Christs — two religious teachers, endowed 
with the highest gifts of intellect and feeling. One 
gave the Sermon on the Mount and the parable of the 
Prodigal Son ; the other imagined the conversation at 
the Well of Sychar, and the holiest words of the Last 
Supper : but this last glorious teacher threw away the 
fame that might have been his, by the folly and sin of 
attributing his own great thoughts to the Savior, whom 
he alone could equal. Who was he? What author of 
that age was capable of the wondrous forgery ? No : 
we recognize in the Fourth Gospel the stamp of Heaven ; 
in its great subject, God's Messiah ; and in his biographer, 
the Beloved Disciple. 



baur's view of the acts. 235 



CHAPTER XIV, 

Baur's View of the Acts. 

In investigating the claims of the Fourth Gospel to 
apostolic authority, we have found their chief opponents 
in "the Tiibingen School," and especially in its master- 
spirit, the late Dr. Ferdinand Christian Baur. We 
have now to examine the views of the same author with 
regard to the Book of Acts and the Epistles of St. 
Paul. 

The Book of the Acts of the Apostles is among those 
which the ancient catalogues, as we have seen, record 
as having been received without question by the early 
church. It bears, too, very strong internal evidence of 
its own character, as the work of a companion of the 
Apostle Paul. (See "Manual," section 19.) Among 
the testimony afforded to it by the Epistles, we may add 
to what has been said already, that Luke, its traditional 
author, is recognized as a companion of Paul in three 
passages (Col. iv. 14; 2 Tim. iv. 11; Philemon 24), 
which at least show the belief of the church respecting 
him at a very early period. The abrupt ending of the 
Acts, too, with the statement that Paul had dwelt two 
years at Rome, marks the date of this composition as 
before the Neronian persecution in A. D. 64. The 
book ends in a cheerful spirit. The great teacher, 
whose history it records, is comparatively at liberty, 



236 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

preaching the gospel in the capital of the civilized world. 
Would the writer have closed his biography in this cheer- 
ful strain, if that period of the church's peaceful growth 
had already been succeeded by the horrible tortures which 
the worst of tyrants inflicted on those Christians to 
whom public prejudice attributed the burning of the 
city? Above all, would a writer in any subsequent age, 
giving a fictitious account of the ministry of Paul and 
other apostles, have failed to embellish his narrative 
with the story of their death ? If the Book of Acts was 
written w T ith a "reconciling tendency," should we not 
find in it the statement which comes to us from early 
tradition, that Peter and Paul were sufferers together in 
the persecution under Nero, while words of mutual re- 
spect and encouragement from the two holy martyrs 
would show the studied attempt to obliterate all remem- 
brance of former discord ? 

It is on the supposition of such discord that Dr. 
Baur's theory is founded. And this supposition itself 
rests in great part on the passage, Galatians ii. 11—14, 
where Paul relates his expostulation with Peter, on the 
inconsistent conduct of the latter towards the Gentile 
converts. There was, then, this author maintains, a de- 
cided opposition between these two apostles ; the others 
of the original apostolic band, especially James and 
John, taking side with Peter, and opposing the admis- 
sion of Gentiles into the church unless they first, as far 
as was possible, became Jews, while Paul appeared as 
the advocate of a free and spiritual system. Through 
his efforts it was that Christianity burst its original bonds 
of narrow Judaism, and became a religion for the civil- 
ized world. 



baur's view of the acts. 237 

The resemblance and the difference are alike notice- 
able, between this view of Baur's and that of which we 
have before spoken, as taken by some Jewish writers. 
The Karaite Rabbi (page 104), like Baur, regards 
Jesus as an excellent teacher of morals, but entirely on 
the platform of the Jewish law, while he represents 
Paul as bringing in other views. But while Baur re- 
gards this apostle as the great improver of Christianity, 
the Jew represents him as its great corrupter. For 
ourselves, if compelled to choose between the two opin- 
ions, we should assent to that of the German theologian. 
While, however, we agree with him in according to the 
Apostle Paul the honor of being the great champion of 
a free and universal Christianity, we believe that he was 
not its earliest assertor ; that the doctrine of deliverance 
from Jewish restrictions was implied, if not expressed, 
in the teachings of Christ himself (especially in John 
iv. 21-23) ; that it was proclaimed by Peter (Acts x.), 
and sanctioned by the assembly of the apostles at Jeru- 
salem (Acts xi. 18; xv. 23-29). 

These results we gather from the Book of Acts. But 
Dr. Baur having adopted a different theory, it becomes 
necessary for him to dispose of that book, by assigning 
it to a later age, and stating the tendency with which it 
was written. That tendency he conceives to have been 
apologetic. It was a defence of the course pursued by 
Paul, and involved a reconcilement of that course with 
the conduct and principles of the other apostles. For 
this purpose, Peter and his companions are represented 
as more liberal than they really were ; in the passages 
quoted above, for instance, and in their reception of 
Paul. (Acts xxi. 20-25.) On the other side, Paul is 



238 EVIDENCES OP CHRISTIANITY. 

described as showing a greater conformity to the Jewish 
law than was consistent with his character.* (xvi. 3 ; 
xviii. 18 ; xxi. 26.) History is thus made to bend to 
theory ; the clear principle laid down in the Book of 
Acts, that the Jewish Christians should observe the cus- 
toms of their nation, but that the Gentiles were not to 
be required to become Jews (xxi. 20, 25) , is represented 
as a compromise imagined by a later fabulist, and Paul's 
own statement, in one of his unquestioned Epistles, that 
he had pursued a conciliatory course towards all (1 Cor. 
ix. 19-22), is utterly disregarded. 

We have to remark upon this theory, that it supposes, 
on the part of the early Christians, an astonishing readi- 
ness to be deceived. If one should at this day write a 
life of Dr. Channing, representing him to have been 
always in accord with the theologians of Andover, it 
would not find unopposed reception as authentic history. 

Dr. Baur is undoubtedly correct in the opinion, that 
the powerful mind of Paul saw, more distinctly than 
the Jewish Christians in general, the universal character 
of the religion he had adopted, and the necessity of 
emancipating it from Jewish forms. Nor are the con- 
troversy that soon arose upon this subject, and the ex- 
istence of some difference of opinion and conduct, even 
among the apostles themselves, new discoveries to any 
who have read with attention the Acts and the Epistle 
to the Galatians. Dr. Baur's development of this con- 
troversy, and his comments on its connection with the 
Epistle just named, and with others, are highly interest- 
ing and instructive. Especially so is his account of the 

* Baur. Paulus, der Apostel Jesu Christi, pages 6, 7, 129, &c. 



baur's view of the acts. 239 

Epistle to the Romans, in which the Apostle of the 
Gentiles brought the great question between himself and 
his opponents before the judgment of the church in 
Rome ; a church which originated in the number of 
Jewish converts, who, from various causes, had met 
together in the capital of the world ; a church which 
was already assuming metropolitan importance from its 
strength and position ; a church at once Jewish in its 
origin, and liberal from its locality, and which was thus 
well fitted to hear and pass judgment on the mighty 
plea.* That plea related to the question, Is the Jew 
superior, and the Gentile inferior ; or are both alike in 
their spiritual wants, and in the application to both of 
the salvation brought by Jesus Christ? And on the 
lecision of this the momentous result depended, whether 
Christianity should thenceforth be the religion of an 
inconsiderable Jewish sect, or that of the civilized 
world. 

Thus far we have assented to the representations of 
this able writer, and have been well pleased to render 
him that praise which he deserves, as setting in clearer 
light views, which, though not unknown before, seem 
in his pages to possess the beauty of originality. But 
when he represents the earlier apostles themselves as 
combining with those who opposed the authority of Paul ; 
when he dwells upon the incidental reproof to Peter 
(Gal. ii. 11-14), as a decided breach between the two 
apostles, a deadly offence that was never forgotten nor 
forgiven by the Jewish disciples ; when he imagines the 

* Baur. Das Christenthum und die Christliche Kirche der drei 
ersten Jahrhunderte, pages 62, 63. 



240 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

party "of Cephas," and that ?f of Christ," in the Corin- 
thian church (1 Cor. i. 12) to have been opponents of 
the apostle, sustained by the authority of his great rival ; 
when he represents the violence committed against Paul 
at Jerusalem (Acts xxi. 27) as the act of Jewish Chris- 
tians, — we must strongly express our dissent. We 
regard the author as following out his theory to results 
not only needlessly dishonorable to the early disciples, 
but contrary to the clear evidence of history. Accord- 
ing to the representations, in the Book of Acts, of the 
council at Jerusalem (chap, xv.), and of the reception 
of Paul at his last visit (xxi. 17-25), the conduct of 
the primitive Christians presented a most beautiful ex- 
ample of mutual liberality among persons of different 
circumstances and habits of thought. 

The account given in the Acts of the acquiescence 
of the original apostles in the liberty accorded to the 
Gentile Christians, is confirmed by Paul himself in the 
very passage which is the principal support of Baur's 
theory. (Gal. ii. 11-14.) The very cause of the reproof 
given to Peter at Antioch was, not that he was the 
champion of the Jewish party, but that he had not cour- 
age to maintain the liberal stand he had at first taken. 
This vacillation is as consistent with the weakness which 
showed itself occasionally in Peter's character, as his 
supposed personal hostility and official opposition to 
Paul, on account of that reproof, are inconsistent with 
his general nobleness and conscientious spirit. That 
the stricter Jews were uneasy at the conduct of the 
Gentile converts, and still more at that of some Jewish 
Christians living among the Gentiles, is evident from 
the Acts and the Epistles. That persons who came well 



baur's view op the acts. 241 

*ecommended from Jerusalem to Corinth, and who were 
probably worthy men, though narrow-minded and in- 
;rusive, were scandalized at the position Paul had taken, 
md placed themselves in opposition to him, is implied 
n some of his expressions. (2 Cor. iii. 1.) But that 
;hese persons were sent by the other apostles, and es- 
)ecially by Peter, to watch, oppose, and censure him, 
m account of his more liberal views, are inferences, in 
>ur* opinion, not warranted by the expressions of the 
ipostle, and inconsistent with the best historical inform 
nation we possess. 

The wildness of Dr. Baur's speculation, when in 
)ursuit of a " tendency," may be exemplified in his 
heory respecting Simon, the Samaritan impostor, men- 
ioned in Acts viii., and known in history as Simon 
klagus. 

There is an ancient book, the Clementine Homilies, 
n which Peter and Simon Magus appear as interlocutors. 
Che book is a sort of religious romance, describing the 
esearches of Clement, a Roman youth, for the true 
ystem of religion. This book, written near the end of 
he second century, has been sometimes confused with 
he writings of the early Christian Father, Clement of 
iiome, but has no true connection with that author. 
3aur maintains that it is written in a strongly Jewish 
pirit, and supposes that under the name of Simon Ma- 
jus the writer intends to indicate Paul. That apostle 
s not, indeed, openly attacked ; but, in the argument 
>f Peter against Simon Magus, expressions are intro- 
luced which are plausibly applied to the great teacher 
)f the Gentiles. From this work, in connection with 
lis own theory of the division between Paul and Peter, 
16 



242 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

and of the unhistorical character of the Acts, Dr. 
Baur derives the conclusion that Simon Magus never 
existed, but that his character was invented as a degra- 
ding picture of the Apostle Paul ! * Every discordant 
circumstance is easily brought into harmony when an 
ingenious theory is to be defended. Simon was a Sa- 
maritan, Paul a Jew ; but, to remove this objection, we 
are told that Jewish hate found satisfaction in represent- 
ing its object as belonging to the apostate race. Simon 
appears and disappears in the Acts before Paul's conver- 
sion. True, it is replied ; but the writer, who himself 
w r as friendly to Paul, arranged it thus for the very pur- 
pose of preventing that discovery which German sagacity 
has worked out. The name of Simon, which belonged 
to the Apostle Peter, would seem strangely chosen to 
designate his great rival ; but this, too, we are to under- 
stand, had a deep design, that a false Simon might 
present the stronger contrast to the true. But the most 
remarkable instance of ingenuity is yet to be named. 
How could the Apostle Paul, disinterested and indepen- 
dent as he always showed himself, be accused of the 
base attempt at bribery, which perpetuated the name of 
the Magian in the crime of " simony " ? Hear the reply. 
Did not Paul, on his last journey to Jerusalem, bring 
"alms to his nation" (Acts xxiv. 17) which he had 
collected among the Gentile converts, far and wide? 
(Rom. xv. 26-31 ; 1 Cor. xvi. 1-4.) And would not 
Jewish-Christian malice represent this as an endeavor 
to bribe the brethren at Jerusalem to a recognition of 
his usurped apostolical authority ? 

* Das Christenthum, p. 91. 



baur's view of the acts. 243 

It is all clear then. Simon the Magian is turned into 
a shadow ; his attempt at bribery was really Paul's noble 
charity. How it was received, we are left, indeed, in 
some doubt. According to the account in Acts xxi. 
17-20, it was received very graciously. We hear noth- 
ing there of any one replying to the offer, " Thy money 
perish with thee," as Peter is represented as replying to 
Simon Magus. But the tradition which did not scruple 
to alter the offender's name, nation, character, and 
crime, would find no difficulty in so slight a thing as 
changing a gracious acceptance into a stern rejection. 

This tradition, wicked as it was in these changes, 
appears to us, in one respect, singularly merciful. Cal- 
umny, in general, delights in ascribing to its object 
things which he did not do ; but calumny, in this in- 
stance, ascribes what Paul did to an imaginary person : 
no, not what Paul did, but what his enemies wished to 
have it believed that he did. We doubt if any one 
could obtain damages for slander against a person who 
had told false stories, not about him, but about a non- 
entity. 

The reason for which the malice of Paul's opponents 
is supposed to have taken this singular way of express- 
ing itself, is not less remarkable. They would not name 
Paul as the object of their slander, because they desired 
that his memory should utterly perish from the earth,* 
These slanderers were, indeed, in a difficult position. 
Their hate to the apostle prompted two inconsistent 
proceedings, — to treat him with silent contempt, so that 
his name should be forgotten ; and to blacken his memory 

* Das Christentlmm, p. 105. 



244 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

by false charges. The manner in which they solved the 
difficulty was ingenious. They said nothing against the 
apostle, but brought their charges against a man of 
straw ! But, unfortunately for their object, Europe 
remembered its great teacher in despite of their silence, 
and their man of straw bore patiently the whole weight 
of their calumnies for century after century, till the 
Tubingen school discovered for whom the burden was 
really intended. 



baur's view op the epistles. 245 



CHAPTER XV. 
Baur's View of the Epistles. 

We have examined, in the two preceding chapters, 
the opinions of Dr. F. C. Baur with regard to the 
authorship of the Fourth Gospel and the authenticity 
of the book of Acts. We propose now to consider his 
views in relation to some of the Epistles of St. Paul. 

Dr. Baur receives as genuine the most important 
letters of the great apostle — those to the Romans, 
Corinthians, and Galatians. In this he adds his tes- 
timony to that of Strauss, who, in a passage already 
quoted (page 151), characterizes the First Epistle to the 
Corinthians as "unquestionably genuine," and declares 
that it establishes the fact, " that many members of the 
primitive Church, especially the apostles, were convinced 
that they had witnessed appearances of the risen Christ." 
We are accustomed to consider the four evangelists as 
the historical witnesses of our faith ; but here is a tes- 
timony to its greatest miracle from another source, not 
less distinct and authoritative than theirs ; and its genu- 
ineness is certified by those very writers who have ex- 
pended the greatest learning and ingenuity to invalidate 
the statements of the Gospels. 

These Epistles being admitted, there remain, as usu- 
ally ascribed to St. Paul, the numerous shorter ones, 
and that to the Hebrews. With regard to the last, 



246 EVIDENCES OP CHRISTIANITY. 

doubts have been entertained from a very early age. 
The others, however, have, from the same antiquity, 
been handed down as genuine. We do not propose to 
examine the claims of all, but to oonsider the ground 
on which Dr. Baur rejects the Epistles to the Ephesians 
and Colossians. 

His discussion of this subject is contained in a vol- 
ume, the title of which, translated, stands as follows : 
"Paul, the Apostle of Jesus Christ : his Life and Ac- 
tions, his Letters and his Doctrine. Stuttgard : 1845. " 
The critic admits, in speaking of the Epistle to the 
Ephesians, that its Pauline origin has never, till re- 
cently, been questioned ; and a similar admission would 
undoubtedly be made with respect to Colossians. His 
argument against them is derived, not from adverse 
testimony, but from what he considers the indications 
presented by their contents. 

In the first place, he reasons, from the strong resem- 
blance between Ephesians and Colossians, against the 
genuineness of one, if not of both. The former he 
judges to be an expansion of the latter, or the latter an 
abridgment of the former. He prefers the first-named 
hypothesis, because Colossians, though shorter, contains 
Borne elements additional to what the two Epistles have 
in common, especially in those local and personal allu- 
sions which contribute most to the aspect of a genuine 
"work. Whatever, then, be the origin of Colossians, 
its sister Epistle is considered to be invalidated. The 
apostle, with his strong, original mind, would not have 
written the same thing in substance to two different 
churches. 

This is a singular argument. In general, if we 



baur's view of the epistles. 247 

would defend the genuineness of a book, we consider 
its resemblance in thought and expression to another 
work, ascribed to the same author, as something in its 
favor — unless, indeed, the similarity be that of servile 
imitation. Of such similarity the pretended Epistle 
to the Laodiceans is an example. This, which may be 
found among the Apocrypha of the New Testament, is 
a mere cento of texts from the genuine writings of St. 
Paul. Not a trace of originality enlivens the tarnished 
lustre of its stolen thoughts. How different this from 
the Epistles now before us ! The fourth and following 
chapters of Ephesians may be regarded as an amplifi- 
cation of the third and fourth of Colossians ; but the 
amplification is from a master-hand. The warning in 
the fourth chapter, "Be ye angry, and sin not; let not 
the sun go down upon your wrath," and the description 
of the Christian's spiritual armor in the sixth chapter, — 
both of which are found in Ephesians, alone, — bear the 
same stamp of a great, original, and holy mind as the ex- 
hortations to parents and children, masters and servants, 
which are common to the two ; and, if it be thought 
that Colossians was the copy, from what passage in 
Ephesians did the copyist derive the bold and beautiful 
figures in which he prompts to follow Christ in his 
ascension by seeking all high things — regarding our 
earthly, sinful life as no more existing, and our true 
life hidden with Christ in God? (Col. iii. 1-4.) This 
last thought is indeed truly Pauline, in the same vein 
with Rom. viii. 10, and 2 Cor., v. 14; yet it is not 
copied from those passages, but has an original beauty 
of its own. 

Our critic, however, does not hold that one of these 



248 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

Epistles is genuine and the other forged, but condemns 
both together. In so doing, he does not appear to per- 
ceive that he encounters the very difficulty which he 
had just urged against the common belief. It is cer- 
tainly very unlikely that two persons should, without 
consent, have forged two pretended Epistles so like 
each other as these ; nor does it seem credible, that, 
when one had forged Colossians, another counterfeiter 
should have received this base coinage as true, and 
given us forgery upon forgery. The only supposition 
remaining for Dr. Baur is, that the pretended author 
repeated himself — the supposition which he had already 
repudiated as applied to St. Paul. It would be, indeed, 
less probable in the case of a forger than in that of the 
apostle ; for the latter, writing naturally, would not 
guard himself against repeating the same thoughts in 
letters to different persons, while one who was fabri- 
cating false Epistles would take especial care against 
whatever might bring his work into suspicion. 

But the great argument of Dr. Baur against the gen- 
uineness of these two Epistles is drawn from what he 
considers the indications of Gnosticism which they 
contain. 

It is difficult for us, in the nineteenth century, to 
conceive the state of mind, that, in the second century, 
found its expression in the strange mythology of Gnosti- 
cism. Perhaps we can imagine it best by remembering, 
that, although the fables of the old religion had then 
ceased to be objects of faith to the cultivated classes, 
they were still objects of admiration. Mr. Lecky, in 
his recent " History of the Rise and Influence of Ra- 
tionalism," has well pointed out, how, in Greece and 



baur's view of the epistles. 249 

Rome, as subsequently in mediaeval Italy, the aesthetic 
element took the place of the superstitious, and the 
forms that had once been worshipped as divine were 
afterwards scarce less adored as beautiful or majestic. 
Hence we may conceive how, when cultivated Greeks 
embraced Christianity, they missed, in the new religion, 
something which had fascinated their taste, though it 
had not won their belief. They had nothing of that 
horror of idolatry which the Old Testament had im- 
parted to the Jews. Probably, on the other hand, they 
considered the worship of images the only method by 
which religion could be rendered acceptable to the un- 
educated masses. For themselves, they knew, as well 
as St. Paul, "that an idol is nothing in the world ; " but 
they had been used to admire the majestic forms en- 
shrined in the temples, and to allegorize the stories told 
by the poets. They had formed thus a new mythology 
for themselves, whose deities were not Jupiter, Minerva, 
and Venus, but Power, Wisdom, and Beauty; and 
they thought — or rather, perhaps, without deliber- 
ately thinking, they felt — that Christianity would be 
improved by annexing to it a mythology somewhat 
similar. 

And, indeed, the systems they invented, strange and 
obscure as they are, are not without something of a 
poetic charm. They represented the Infinite, in the 
solemn majesty of his eternal existence, which none 
shared with him but venerable Silence. From these 
proceeded Mind, the Only-begotten, and his sister and 
partner, Truth. With a long succession of beings such 
as these did Valentine and his fellow-Gnostics people 
the "Plerorna," the Fulness, the Perfection, One of 



250 EVIDENCES OP CHRISTIANITY. 

these aeons, named Sophia or Wisdom, endeavoring too 
ambitiously to comprehend the Infinite, was cast out 
for a time from thePleroma; and, in her sufferings, 
relieved by the efforts of the aeon Christ, we find ob- 
scurely set forth the strugglings of the human spirit, 
and the divine aid communicated by the Redeemer. 
One might almost think, that the Gnostics, while uncon- 
sciously depicting the ill success of their own ambitious 
theorizing, had uttered a prophecy which was to find 
its fulfilment in the Hegelian philosophy of Germany. 
There Wisdom endeavors to comprehend the Infinite, 
deciding that he w only comes to self-consciousness in 
man," and, losing itself in a labyrinth of words, wan- 
ders in darkness, until it finds the light that Christ alone 
can give. 

Few would imagine, in reading the Epistles to the 
Ephesians and Colossians, that any ingenuity would see 
in them marks of the strange, Gnostic system of poly- 
theistic Christianity. Yet so it is. Dr. Baur discovers 
such traces in various passages of the two Epistles, but 
chiefly in the first chapter of Colossians. f By him," 
the apostle says, "were all things created that are in 
heaven and that are in earth, visible and invisible, 
whether they be thrones or dominions, or principalities 
or powers." In these words the aeons are supposed to 
be referred to. " For it pleased the Father that in him 
should all fulness" (the whole Pleroma) "dwell." 
These verses will sufficiently exemplify the argument 
which, with great ingenuity, fixes upon expressions 
found in these Epistles, and used also by the Gnostic 
writers, and concludes therefrom that these Epistles 
were written, not by St. Paul, but by some one at a 



baur's view of the epistles. 251 

later period, when the Gnostic system had become, to 
a considerable extent, developed. 

Thus, some thousand years hence, may some student, 
examining the history of this country with a strong 
propensity to doubt wherever doubt is possible, question 
the genuineness of an ancient document that purports to 
be "Articles of Confederation " among- the thirteen oriri- 
nal States, — that form of union under which our 
Revolutionary war was waged, and our independence 
established. K Confederation ! " he will say ; M Confed- 
erate States ! — we know well to what period such ex- 
pressions belong. They date from the civil war of 
1861-65. The document is evidently spurious. It 
was forged by some writer on the Southern side in that 
war, for the purpose of strengthening in the minds of 
his party the conviction that they were maintaining the 
principles of their fathers." As it may then be replied, 
that w Confederation " was an English word in common 
use before 1861, so may the answer be given to Dr. 
Baur, that " Pleroma," meaning fulness, was a Greek 
word in common use long before the strange mythology 
of the Gnostics was invented. It is a word in common 
use by St. Paul in those Epistles which Dr. Baur him- 
self acknowledges to be genuine. (See Rom. xi. 12, 
25 ; xv. 29. Gal. iv. 4.) 

However the apostle may use terms which were after- 
wards employed by the Gnostics, the doctrine he lays 
down is essentially different from theirs. Their system 
divided the honors which it rendered among a numerous 
family of aeons : the apostle recognizes but one w image 
of the invisible God," in whom "it pleased the Father 
that all fulness should dwell." Before this essential 



252 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

difference, — the difference between Christianity and 
polytheism, — a mere verbal similarity becomes insig- 
nificant. 

It appears to us that the free employment, in these 
Epistles, of terms which the Gnostics afterwards appro- 
priated, is a proof, not against their genuineness, but 
strongly in its favor. Had these works been written 
after the development of Gnosticism, they would either 
have been unquestionably on its side, or have been care- 
fully guarded against all suspicion of assent to it. Had 
the writer been favorable to the new sect, we should 
have had at least its earliest ideas introduced ; such as 
the fancy that the God of the Jews was not the Supreme 
God, and the fancy that the seon Christ withdrew from 
the man Jesus before his crucifixion. Had the writer 
been unfavorable to Gnosticism, it is not probable that 
he would have tranquilly used, in familiar senses, words 
which had become identified with a system of error. 
So early did Gnosticism appear in the Church, that 
books written in entire unconsciousness of its existence 
must have a date assigned them very near the age of 
the apostles. 

The resemblance of the texts we have quoted, and of 
other portions of these Epistles, to Gnostic thought and 
modes of expression, may be accounted for by a differ- 
ent theory from that of Dr. Baur. The Gnostics may 
have derived their forms of language from the passages 
in question, which it is known they quoted in their con- 
troversial writings. Perhaps, also, the train of thought 
which at length resulted in Gnosticism had begun to 
develop itself in the apostle's time, and had influenced 
the common modes of expression. These he used 



baur's view of the epistles. 253 

because they were used by those around him, and had 
not yet become connected with a system of error. 

The two Epistles we have noticed, and the remaining 
books of the New Testament, are by no means essen- 
tial to the evidence of Christianity. They are, however, 
too valuable to be lost ; too full of holy lessons for us to 
resign them, without examination, to the claims of a 
rash and destructive criticism. For the purpose of this 
work, the specimen now presented, of the arguments 
brought against them by the modern school of scepti- 
cism, may be sufficient. 



254 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

The Apocryphal New Testament. 

A new edition of the book bearing this title has 
recently been published in Boston. It is a reprint of 
that brought out about half a century since, by Hone, 
in London, and of which a Boston edition of 1832 is 
now before us. There are other collections of docu- 
ments thus entitled, in the ancient languages, from the 
original one by Fabricius to the recent labors of the 
German scholars, Thilo and Tischendorf ; and a new 
edition in English has recently appeared abroad. 

No reasonable objection can be made to the publica- 
tion of these old writings, either in their original form 
or translated into English. But the collection made by 
Hone was accompanied by prefaces and remarks of 
which the purpose was obvious — to discredit the Chris- 
tian Scriptures. The idea was suggested that our re- 
ligion is founded on a mass of legendary accounts ; that 
of these, some were arbitrarily selected by early church 
councils or individual leaders, to be preserved with care 
and honored as the word of God, while the rest, possess- 
ing equal claims, were rejected, and, as far as possible, 
put out of sight. Thus speaks the preface to the first 
edition, reprinted in those which followed : — 

?t After the writings contained in the New Testament 
were selected from the numerous Gospels and Epistles 



THE APOCRYPHAL NEW TESTAMENT. 255 

then in existence, what became of the books that were 
rejected by the compilers ? " 

The utter falsity of this view is discernible on a slight 
inspection of the evidence afforded by ancient Christian 
writers. This has been presented in this work, and in 
the K Manual," which preceded it. Many of the Christian 
writers who enter into this subject lived more than a 
century before the Council of Nice, at which, this author 
would have us believe, the " selection " was made. The 
personal knowledge of several among them would go 
back a century and a half before that Council. They 
speak of our present Gospels and other Scriptures as 
genuine and authentic, and do not thus speak of the 
documents that are brought forward to compete with 
them. They speak thus, not referring to any decree of 
a preceding council, but simply as people mention facts 
that are well known to themselves and to all around 
them. 

The late Rev. Dr. Lamson, one of our foremost schol- 
ars, especially in the department of ecclesiastical history, 
speaks thus of the edition to which we refer, in an arti- 
cle in the "Christian Examiner" for March, 1833. 

" The compiler of the Apocryphal Testament, who is 
evidently hostile to Christianity, designs to convey the 
impression that the books now composing our New Tes- 
tament were arbitrarily selected from a mass of writings 
possessing the same or similar claims to respect. This 
is the object of the prefatory notices to the several pieces, 
in constructing which he has drawn largely on Jones 
( f New and Full Method of settling the Canonical Au- 
thority of the New Testament ') , often taking from him 
whole sentences without acknowledgment. But these are 



256 EVIDENCES OP CHRISTIANITY. 

so adroitly strung together, with the help of a little 
coloring, and a dexterous use of the arts of insinuation 
and suppression, that they can hardly fail to perplex and 
mislead the unlearned reader. Such disingenuous arti- 
fice requires to be exposed. We cannot too strongly 
protest against its use. It is difficult to believe that any 
real lover of truth can ever resort to it. Such wisdom 
cometh not from above." 

If the volume was published free from these insidious 
prefaces and remarks, we should welcome its appearance 
as an important aid to the evidences of Christianity. 
Let these old documents be diffused far and wide. Let 
every candid doubter peruse them, and compare them 
with the genuine New Testament. We have no fear 
for the result. 

There are portions of this volume, however, which 
are not properly included under its title. We receive 
the New Testament as containing the earliest records 
of Christian history, and what remains of the writings 
of its earliest preachers. A collection called The Apoc- 
ryphal New Testament should comprise, then, only such 
documents as claim a similar character. But the writ- 
ings ascribed to the "Apostolical Fathers," — Clement, 
Ignatius, Polycarp, and Hermas, — whether genuine 
or not, belong to a later period, and should have no 
place in such a collection. The letter bearing the name 
of Barnabas has a higher claim, its reputed author hav- 
ing been one of the earliest preachers, and being styled 
an apostle in Acts xiv. 14. This letter has gained in 
the opinion of scholars since the discovery that it forms 
a part of the ancient Sinaitic manuscript. But the in- 
ternal evidence is against it, as has been well stated by 



THE APOCRYPHAL NEW TESTAMENT. 257 

Mr. Norton, in the first volume of his work on the 
w Genuineness of the Gospels." We will glance in suc- 
cession at those portions of this book which are more 
properly classed under the title "Apocrypha of the 
New Testament." 

The first of these is " The Gospel of the Birth of 
Mary." This, Dr. Lamson tells us, in the article al- 
ready referred to, is supposed to have been a forgery by 
Seleucus or Lucius, a disciple of Marcion, in the second 
century. It is mentioned, by Epiphanius in the fourth 
century, as "an impudent forgery." It tells us that Jo* 
achim and his wife Anna, being without offspring, were 
comforted by angels, and assured of the birth of a holy 
child. Marv is born to them, and is marked with es- 
pecial proofs of divine favor. She is at length to be 
betrothed, and all the unmarried men of the lineage of 
David are required to present their rods to the high 
priest, that he may know, by a miraculous sign, who is 
the predestined bridegroom. The aged Joseph at first 
withdraws his rod, but, being called on, presents it 
again, when the holy dove descends and alights upon 
it. The narrative ends with the birth of Christ. 

The same story is told, with variations, in the second 
document, — " The Protevangelion," — ascribed to the 
Apostle James the Less, but really as destitute of au- 
thority as its predecessor. From this we extract the 
following account of what Joseph saw when the hour 
was come for the birth of Jesus. 

"As I was going," said Joseph, "I saw the clouds 

astonished, and the fowls of the air stopping in the 

midst of their flight. And I looked down towards the 

earth, and saw a table spread, and working people sit- 

17 



258 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

ting around it ; but their hands were upon the table, 
and they did not move to eat. They who had meat in 
their mouths did not eat ; they who lifted their hands 
up to their heads did not draw them back, and they who 
lifted them up to their mouths did not put anything in ; 
but all their faces were fixed upwards." The sheep and 
kids were equally motionless, w and the shepherd lifted 
up his hand to smite them, and his hand continued up." 
From this we pass to still greater puerility in w The 
First Gospel of the Infancy." In Thilo's edition this is 
given in Arabic, with a Latin translation. It obtained 
a degree of credit in the East, and appears to have 
been in the hands of Mohammed and his coadjutors in 
writing the Koran. It purports to be from " The Book 
of Joseph the High Priest, called by some Caiaphas " — 
a personage from whom we should not have expected 
an attestation of miracles wrought by Christ. The first 
it records is, that the infant Redeemer spoke in his 
cradle, saying to his mother, " Mary, I am Jesus, the 
Son of God, that Word which thou didst bring forth 
according to the declaration of the Angel Gabriel to 
thee, and my Father hath sent me for the salvation of 
the world." At the arrival of Joseph in Egypt with the 
child Jesus, an idol announces, "The Unknown God is 
come hither, who is truly God," and forthwith falls from 
its pedestal. Passing over a number of legends, some of 
them too revolting for our pages, we are told, in chapter 
seven, of "a young man, who had been bewitched, and 
turned into a mule, miraculously cured by Christ being 
put upon his back, and married to the girl who had 
been cured of leprosy." We have, in chapter eight, 
the story of the robbers Titus and Dumachus, as told 



THE APOCRYPHAL NEW TESTAMENT. 259 

in Longfellow's ef Golden Legend;" in chapter nine, 
f? two sick children cured by water wherein Christ was 
washed." In chapter fifteen is the famous miracle of 
the birds made by Jesus of clay, and gifted with life, 
with the account of wonders wrought in a dyer's shop. 
We next hear of his assisting Joseph at his trade of a 
carpenter; not by ordinary labor, but by miraculously 
changing the size of articles which Joseph had made 
too small or too large, especially a throne for the king 
of Jerusalem. Some stories are added which are not 
without a certain kind of beauty ; but these are followed 
by others as inconsistent with the character of Jesus as 
with justice and humanity. Jesus appears as the tyrant 
of his playmates, putting to death by his word a boy 
who had destroyed his fish-pool, and another who had 
accidentally run against him. He appears next as the 
assuming teacher of his teachers, of whom one who at- 
tempted to chastise him has his hand withered, and dies. 

" The Second Gospel of the Infancy," bearing the 
name of Thomas, contains the repetition of some of 
these incidents, with* some other miracles of the vindic- 
tive kind. 

The letters between Jesus and Abgarus, King of 
Edessa, are better conceived than most of these apoc- 
ryphal writings ; so well, indeed, that some authors of 
note have received them as genuine. The prince in- 
vites the great prophet to his city, which, he says, is 
indeed small, but neat, and large enough for them both ; 
and Jesus declines in words of dignity and kindness. 
Tradition adds that he presented his picture to Abgarus, 
and sent his disciple Thaddeus to cure him of his lep- 
rosy. We hear this story of Abgarus first from Euse- 



260 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

bins, in the fourth century, who professes to derive it 
from the public records of Edessa. It is unfortunate 
for its credit, however, that, if it were true, it would 
have been of too much importance to remain so long 
unknown. It would have been a precedent, given by 
Jesus himself, settling the great question about the re- 
ception of heathens into the Christian Church, and must 
have been appealed to in such discussions as those of 
Acts xi. and xv. 

We come now to " The Gospel of Nicodemus, for- 
merly called the Acts of Pontius Pilate." This is a 
romance, which may have been written without the 
intention of deceiving. It is hard to believe that any 
one should suppose a tale so utterly at variance with 
history could deceive any one. According to this ac- 
count, at the trial of Jesus, numbers of those whom he 
had miraculously relieved gave evidence in his favor, 
and the Roman standards bowed before him. After his 
crucifixion, Joseph of Arimathea, who had been impris- 
oned, is miraculously delivered ; the soldiers and other 
persons give testimony to the resurrection. The Jewish 
Council, moved by this, inquire further into the claims 
they had so decidedly rejected. Charinus and Lenthius, 
two young men who had risen from the dead, relate to 
them what had transpired in the spiritual world at the 
crucifixion. Their narratives, given in writing, agree 
in every respect ; and after these are completed, the 
writers vanish. The Jewish priests and rulers, being 
required by Pilate, search their sacred books, and de- 
clare their conviction that Jesus, whom they had cruci- 
fied, "is Jesus Christ the Son of God, and true and 
Almighty God." This astonishing confession, which 



THE APOCRYPHAL NEW TESTAMENT. 261 

the whole history of the Jewish nation since proves never 
to have been made, closes the "Gospel of Nicodemus," 
as translated in the book before us. There is attached 
to it, however, in the Greek copies, as given in Thilo's 
and Tischendorf s editions, an account of the subsequent 
fate of Pilate. That magistrate is summoned to Rome, 
examined before the emperor, and condemned to death 
for allowing the crucifixion of Christ. He dies peni- 
tent, however, and his head is received by an angel. 
Another account, equally authentic, forbids us to rejoice 
in this eminent convert, but introduces to us another, 
even more distinguished. According to this, the em- 
peror in wrath commands Pilate to appear before him. 
Pilate comes, but has put on the seamless robe of Christ, 
for which the soldiers had cast lots. Under the charm 
of this sacred garment the emperor's wrath melts away, 
and Pilate is twice graciously received ; but the garment 
being taken from him, the charm is lost, and the em- 
peror sends him to prison, where the unjust judge takes 
his own life. It is hard to dispose of the body, on 
account of the disturbance made by evil spirits wherever 
it is deposited ; but it is finally left in the wild recesses 
of the Swiss mountains. Tiberius, in the most edifying 
manner, professes his faith in the Savior. 

The " Gospel of Nicodemus " is followed by the 
"Apostles' Creed," respecting which, it is sufficient to 
repeat, from the book before us, the remark of Arch- 
bishop Wake : "As it is not likely that, had any such 
thing as this been done by the apostles, St. Luke would 
have passed it by, without taking the least notice of.it, 
so the diversity of creeds in the ancient Church, and 
that not only in expression, but in some whole articles, 



262 EVIDENCES OP CHRISTIANITY. 

too, sufficiently shows that the Creed which we call by 
that name was not composed by the twelve apostles, 
much less in the same form in which it now is." 

" The Epistle of Paul to the Laodiceans " is a letter 
of nineteen verses, made up of sentences collected from 
the genuine writings of St. Paul. It is evidently found- 
ed on the verse, Col. iv. 16, where reference is made to 
such an epistle, now lost. 

The Epistles purporting to have passed between Paul 
and Seneca are fourteen in number, and are marked by 
ceremonious politeness and insignificance. Think of 
Paul's cautioning Seneca not to put himself in danger 
of the emperor's displeasure by speaking in favor of the 
Christians (chap, viii.) , and of his regretting that he had 
to place his own name before Seneca's in the ordinary 
Roman method of commencing a letter! (Chap, x.) 
Seneca, on the other hand, while complimenting his 
f? dearest Paul " on the loftiness and sublimity of his sen- 
timents, is somewhat uneasy on the subject of his 
inelegant Latin ! 

"The Acts of Paul and Thecla" is a romantic tale, 
written evidently after the introduction of the false idea 
of the merit of celibacy. Thecla, a noble lady of 
Iconium, whose house was next to that in which Paul 
preached, hears his exhortations and becomes a convert. 
She in consequence refuses to marry Thamyris, to whom 
she is betrothed. She undergoes unheard-of persecu- 
tions, and is saved by astonishing miracles. Fire will 
not burn her, nor wild beasts devour her. Released at 
length, she retires to a desert, where she leads the life 
of a hermitess. At length, at ninety, she escapes from 
a danger — not very probable at that age — by the rock 



THE APOCRYPHAL NEW TESTAMENT. 263 

opening, and affording her a retreat, closing behind her 
when she had entered it. 

Such are the Apocrypha of the New Testament. Let 
any one compare them with the genuine records of our 
faith, and there needs no argument to prove the differ- 
ence. A gold coin and a copper counterfeit are not 
more easily distinguished. Let us apply such compar- 
ison in some particular instances. 

Among the stories of the w Infancy " select the best ; 
not the revolting legends of cures wrought with baby- 
clothes or washing water, nor those of childish anger 
armed with divine power, but such as that of Jesus 
changing his playmates into sportive kids, and then re- 
storing them to their proper forms ; and compare this, 
pretty as it is in its way, with the single beautiful inci- 
dent recorded of his childhood by Luke — that, in his 
eagerness to learn, he staid over-long in the temple, in 
company with gray-headed teachers of the law. We 
see at once which is more worthy of the future prophet, 
and of that God who grants miraculous power only for 
the greatest and most serious purposes. 

Compare the trial of Jesus before Pilate according 
to the " Gospel of Nicodemus " with the same trial 
according to the K Gospel of John." In the one, 
Pilate confuses himself with Herod (vi. 23), and sen- 
tences the prisoner in the face of miracles, partly re- 
ported in evidence, and partly witnessed with his own 
eyes. In the other, there is no confusion of history, 
and no testimony is given in favor of the prisoner, save 
that of his own innocent and glorious aspect. The 
obscure but suggestive words of Pilate in the genuine 
Gospel, "What is truth?" are in the false one dilated 
into a vapid conversation. 



264 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

We have already compared the " Epistle to the Lao- 
diceans" with the "Epistle to the Colossians." The one 
is borrowed, every sentence of it, from the writings of 
Paul. The other, strongly as it resembles that to the 
Ephesians, has yet its own distinctive character. Read 
the beautiful third chapter, beginning, "If ye, then, be 
risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, 
where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God ; " and, 
if you can, believe with Baur, that " Colossians " is as 
spurious as "Laodiceans." 

Compare, again, "The Acts of Paul and Thecla" 
with the "Acts of the Apostles." In the one, the 
morality is false, the great principle of Christianity 
being made to consist in a monastic asceticism ; the 
miracles are of the most overwhelming kind, yet heathen 
judges and people witness a succession of them before 
they cease from their persecuting rage. In the other, 
our dealing is with human beings ; the morality is pure 
and healthy ; and the miracles which are recorded occur 
at wide intervals, as signs and encouragements, indeed, 
but not as public subversions of the order of nature. 

The modern school of scepticism would have us be- 
lieve that the books of the New Testament were made 
up of legendary accounts, forged or gathered by persons 
who knew not what was true and what was false. Our 
answer is, we have such accounts ; here they are ; be- 
hold them, and see their emptiness ! If the Fourth 
Gospel were what you tell us, it would be like the " Gos- 
pels of the Infancy," or the " Gospel of Nicodemus." 
If Christianity were what you suppose, its instructions 
would be as void of all moral worth as its records would 
be full of silly stories and extravagant miracles. But 



THE APOCRYPHAL NEW TESTAMENT. 265 

the early Church committed no such folly as to receive 
these fictitious accounts as of equal value with the true. 
Far as we can trace back towards the very earliest 
period, the Church proclaimed, by the voice of Irenasus, 
of Origen, and of a host of others, that it received as 
canonical and authentic, the New Testament, substan- 
tially as it is now in the hands of every Christian 
believer. 



266 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY, 



CHAPTER XVII. 
The Old Testament Prophecies. 

We have spoken, in a previous chapter, of the Jew- 
ish revelation ; and the subject of its connection with the 
Christian, particularly as regards the prophecies of the 
Old Testament, has been, to some extent, presented in 
our "Manual" (sections 29-31.) A few remarks, 
howeyer, will now be offered. 

In the first place, it is worthy of observation, that 
the evidence of Christianity is but little embarrassed by 
those questions which have from time to time arisen with 
respect to the Old Testament. Repeatedly has it been 
thought that our religion was in danger from this 
source. When Galileo asserted the motion of the 
earth, and when modern geology brought its proof of 
the existence of this world for ages before the date 
which Christian scholars had derived from the exami- 
nation of Scripture, many were alarmed, and many 
were indignant. There was no cause for indignation, 
for science must be free ; there was no cause for alarm, 
for God's truth is safe in his keeping. Indignation and 
alarm passed away, and Christianity stood firm, though 
its teachers were obliged to remodel some of their opin- 
ions. Thus it will be still, to whatever results the care- 
ful study of nature and of Scripture may lead the man 
of science and the theologian. 



THE OLD TESTAMENT PROPHECIES. 267 

We are not of those, therefore, who anticipate any 
evil, or perceive any cause of angry excitement, from 
such investigations as those of Bishop Colenso. Rather 
do we anticipate — and to our own mind the anticipa- 
tion is already in part fulfilled — that such free inves- 
tigation will remove difficulties, and cause the truth 
of divine revelation to appear more gloriously than it 
ever yet has done. But the theme is too vast for us 
to enter on, and belongs rather to the department of 
scriptural criticism than to that to which this book is 
devoted. 

We have now to speak of the prophecies of the Old 
Testament which found their fulfilment in the New. 
We shall not repeat the task, already pursued in the 
"Manual," of enumerating individual prophecies. In- 
deed, to us the argument seems much more powerful, 
derived from the collective prophecy of the Jewish 
nation. That nation's whole existence, indeed, before 
Christ, was prophetic, as its existence since its rejection 
of hirn, has been a standing testimony to the truth of his 
divine commission, a wonder of many ages, which may 
at length find its fitting close in some magnificent dis- 
play of providential mercy, showing that w God hath 
not cast away his people which he foreknew." 

The subject which particularly claims our attention 
is the objection brought against the application of the 
prophecies to Christ, on the ground that his character 
and office were different from those which had been pre- 
dicted. The Jews, we are told, expected a temporal 
monarch ; Jesus bore, instead, the office of a moral 
and religious teacher : they expected a triumphant 
prince; he lived in poverty, and died a death of suffer- 
ing, and, as then considered, of shame. 



268 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

It was, undoubtedly, on account of these differences 
between their expectations and his fulfilment, that the 
Jewish people rejected Jesus while living, and have 
persevered in that rejection the rather since the contrast 
was completed by his death. Yet it is obvious that in 
this they have preferred a low and literal interpretation 
of the prophecies to one more exalted. What would 
have been the deliverance of Judea from the Roman 
power, compared to the deliverance of the world from 
ignorance and sin? What the splendor of a Jewish 
throne to the empire which Jesus has for centuries exer- 
cised over the human race? That the nation rejected 
their Messiah, because he came in a character so far 
beyond their highest anticipations, shows not the cor- 
rectness, but the inadequacy, of their judgment. It 
shows also the intellectual and spiritual glory of the 
Leader, who could rise to thoughts so far superior to 
those of his people. Many an aspirant has attempted 
to fulfil the Jewish expectation of an earthly monarch ; 
but it was Jesus alone who rose above that expectation, 
avoided those who " would take him by force and make 
him a king, " and deliberately chose the crown of thorns 
in preference to a crown of gold, and the kingdom of 
truth and love rather than one of earthly splendor. 

The prophets had a very imperfect conception of the 
glories of the Messiah's kingdom ; but the divine pur- 
poses, to whose accomplish ment they looked forward, 
were truly fulfilled in Christ and his religion. And the 
fact that while he applied their predictions to himself, 
his greatness was of a nature that far transcended the 
most exalted visions of prophetic inspiration, constitutes 
to our mind an important proof of the divinity of his 



THE OLD TESTAMENT PROPHECIES. 2G9 

mission. The more fully it can be shown that the 
prophets had no conception of a peaceful, spiritual, 
self-denying Messiah, the greater the glory of the exalted 
soul that could look beyond their brilliant presentations 
of an earthly throne, to discern and to claim the true, 
divinely constituted royalty. 

We believe that the prophets were inspired in a man- 
ner different from other writers, however great or good. 
That difference we conceive to have been one, not of 
degree, but of kind. Had it been of degree merely, 
Isaiah might have given us sublimer poems than Ho- 
mer : as it is, he has given us predictions, which have 
received their fulfilment in Christ. We distinguish, 
too, between the inspiration of these Hebrew bards and 
that of other poets, whose anticipations of the future 
have sometimes been peculiarly happy. An unknown 
Latin author, claiming the name of Seneca, foretold the 
discovery of America ; Bishop Berkeley foresaw the 
greatness of the United States. We recognize in these 
the great thought, the happy coincidence; but in the 
Hebrew prophets we recognize the especial divine com- 
munication. 

Was that communication made to all the prophets, 
or to a few, or to one only among them? Dr. Palfrey, 
in his " Lectures on the Jewish Scriptures and Antiqui- 
ties " (Lectures XIX and XXXIV.) , and his M Relation 
between Judaism and Christianity," restricts the divine 
message in the Old Testament times to its earliest por- 
tion, believing that the idea of the Messiah was given 
to the world chiefly in those words of Moses (Deut. 
xviii. 15), "The Lord thy God will raise up unto thee 
a prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like 



270 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

unto me : unto him ye shall hearken." The later Mes- 
sianic predictions he conceives to have been echoes of 
this. But the announcement in Deuteronomy appears 
too indefinite to be thus singled out ; nor do we know 
any other that can claim such exclusive honor. It may 
be that some of the long line of prophets received the 
great thought from those who went before them ; but, 
until some mode of distinguishing between direct and 
secondary prophecies is suggested, we can but consider 
all as dictated by the same inspiration. 

But that inspiration did not make the prophets ac- 
quainted with all truth; they were not infallible. If 
one of them had been, the world would have needed no 
future guide. If Isaiah had foreseen in its fulness 
the spiritual teaching of Jesus, Isaiah might have re- 
vealed it, and the coming of Jesus have been forestalled. 
The prophets saw but in part — God alone is omniscient. 

What did they see ? We will use that metaphor of 
sight ; for it is the one which the prophets themselves 
use to express the method in which the Divine purposes 
were made known to them. We are told of " the vision 
of Isaiah the son of Amoz, which he saw concerning 
Judah and Jerusalem." We may find the metaphor of 
sight a better guide than that of breath, implied in the 
word "inspiration." 

In our common, natural vision, the beholder has be- 
fore him an object, of which he sees some parts more 
clearly than others. The different parts are not always 
seen in their right proportions. If it be a prospect, 
prominent parts are at once recognized, while interven- 
ing spaces are less subject to observation. Nor can 
distances be accurately determined. Objects which lie 



THE OLD TESTAMENT PROPHECIES. 271 

in the same line of vision may naturally be supposed 
much nearer to each other than they really are. Es- 
pecially if the remotest object seen be of great dimen- 
sions, as a mountain, arresting the attention, and 
shutting out all beyond, its proportions may be mis- 
taken, and it may be supposed both nearer and smaller 
than it actually is. 

Thus it was with the "vision" granted to the proph- 
ets. From time to time, their eyes were open to discern 
the future. They saw there objects relating to the 
present interests of their own country and of others ; 
and beyond, they saw the waving fields, the towering 
cities, the majestic temples, of a .period of civilization, 
peace, and happiness, far surpassing anything that 
they had known. "The mountain of the Lord's house, 
established on the top of the mountains," closed the 
view; and there, it seemed, they might discern, far off, 
a majestic figure, of colossal proportions, that seemed 
to preside over all below, while the Divine glory hovered 
above his head. God's wisdom and goodness displayed 
to them the scene ; their own minds were to interpret it. 
What name should they give to that happy country but 
that of their own Israel ? What should that holy city 
be but their own Jerusalem ? And that glorious per- 
sonage whom they owned as God's Anointed, God's 
Messiah, — who should he be but the king, the heir 
of the old royal line, who should, at that predestined 
time, be on the throne? What wonder if, while the 
eye failed to measure distances with correctness, each 
prophet thought that the Messiah before him was either 
the prince he served, or the heir that had just been 
born? if the writer of the seventy-second Psalm iden- 



272 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

tified him with Solomon, and Isaiah (chap, ix.) with 
the young Hezekiah ? 

We believe, then, that the vision of the prophets was 
not only subjective, but objective, in the general fore- 
sight of a great and heaven-sent Deliverer. That they 
called him king when they might have called him 
prophet or sage, detracts but little from this foresight ; 
for who but a king, could they suppose, would exercise 
such power, and confer such blessing ? We may ques- 
tion, too, whether either of these titles would have fitted 
the actual position of Jesus Christ as well as that which 
was employed. "Prophet" would have designated him 
as a member of the old order, not the founder and pre- 
siding spirit of a new ; and "sage " would have been 
the title of a self-constituted teacher, not of one sent 
by God. That the demand of Jesus for the reverence 
and obedience of mankind was, in many respects, a 
personal claim, has been so well illustrated in the recent 
suggestive volume, " Ecce Homo," and is a fact so famil- 
iar to every believer's heart, that we need linger no 
more on the task of excusing the prophets for the as- 
sertion of his kingly dignity. 

And there were some to whom a nearer vision was 
granted. We will not enter into the criticism of the 
famous passage, Isa. lii., liii. ; but one thing is clear — 
that, whether from this passage or from others, some of 
the Jews had derived the idea of a suffering Messiah. 
And this idea in them is the more remarkable, as it was 
contrary to their general train of thought, their expec- 
tations and hopes, and as they resorted to a far-sought 
supposition to explain it. Thus says Strauss (Life of 
Jesus, Part III., Chap. I., § 112) : — 



THE OLD TESTAMENT PROPHECIES. 273 

w Jewish writings are by no means destitute of pas- 
sages in which it is distinctly asserted that a Messiah 
would perish in a violent manner ; but these passages 
relate, not to the proper Messiah, the offspring of David, 
but to another, from among the posterity' of Joseph and 
Ephraim, who was appointed to hold a subordinate posi- 
tion in relation to the former." 

The Jewish nation, then, guided by its prophets, not 
only for ages looked forward to an exalted and divinely 
commissioned Leader, who should establish a universal 
and everlasting dominion, but it had received the im- 
pression from the same ancient prophets, that this tri- 
umph was to be accompanied by suffering and death. 
Confused by this apparent inconsistency, they strove to 
reconcile it by supposing two divine messengers, one 
bearing the character of a conqueror, the other that of 
a victim. At length One appeared in whom both these 
anticipations were fulfilled, and in a far loftier, more 
spiritual manner, than either the nation or the prophets 
themselves had imagined. When the young Teacher 
of Nazareth declared the coming of the kingdom of 
God, the world threatened the natural reward of insane 
fanaticism — utter and contemptible failure; and the 
world did w T hat it could to accomplish its threat, for it 
crucified him. But, notwithstanding this, the prophecy 
of the old Jewish Church has been fulfilled. That cru- 
cified Messiah has established a dominion which has 
lasted eighteen hundred years, has conquered half the 
world, and is on its course of conquest still. Thus do 
the prophecy and its fulfilment match into and prove 
each other. Separate them, and each part appears as 
a delusion. If Jesus did not fulfil the Messianic proph- 
18 



274 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

ecies, those prophecies were idle dreams. If the proph- 
ecies did not relate to Jesus, his whole ministry was 
founded on mistaken presumption. But if a sway- 
extending over the world is wider than one over Pales- 
tine, and if a reign over the hearts and lives of men for 
centuries is as worthy the name of kingdom as the pomp 
of an earthly prince, then that which Jesus founded was 
a true sovereignty, and he is the Messiah, the Heaven- 
anointed King, 



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among those who have suddenly acquired wealth, and displaying les- 
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untrod by the novelist. The Boston Transcript says of it : — 

" The story is thoroughly American in tone, scenery, incident, and 
characters; it is to American life what Miss Bremer's ' Home ' is to 
life in Sweden. Like the Swedish tale, simple, natural in incident, its 
characters have each a powerful individuality which takes hold at once 
upon the interest and sympathies of the reader. The drama of the 
story is artistic, and though its materials are drawn from the simple, 
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WARE (Rev. J. F. W.) Home Life : What it Is, and What 
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Just Published, 

LESSONS ON THE CHRISTIAN LIFE. For Older 
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BY JAMES MARTINEAU. 



BOSTON : 

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18C9. 



ftSi#$Q$l*m$<*tt* Writ £*g# 

OF 

JAMES MAETINEAU. 

Two volumes, Crown Octavo, of Mr, Martineau's Essays are now 
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CONTENTS, VOL. 1. 

COMTE'S LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY. 

JOHN STUART MILL. 

NATURE AND GOD. 

SCIENCE, NESCIENCE, AND FAITH. 

MANSEL'S LIMITS OF RELIGIOUS THOUGHT. 

CEREBRAL PSYCHOLOGY: BAIN. 

REVELATION, WHAT IT IS NOT, AND WHAT IT IS. 

PERSONAL INFLUENCES ON OUR PRESENT THE- 
OLOGY : NEWMAN— COLERIDGE— CARLYLE. 

THEOLOGY IN ITS PRESENT RELATION TO PRO^ 
GRESSIVE KNOWLEDGE. 

CONTENTS, VOL. 2. 

WHEWELL'S MORALITY. 

" SYSTEMATIC MORALITY. 

MORELL'S HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY. 
SOUL IN NATURE. 
KINGSLEY'S PHAETON. 
SIR WILLIAM HAMILTON. 

KINGSLEY'S ALEXANDRIA AND HER SCHOOLS. 
THEORY OF REASONING. 
PLATO, HIS PHYSICS AND METAPHYSICS. 
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